Dollops of Scrap

TCR 100th palette - part I - and a wonderful day with my hubby

2012-03-02T18:24:00.000+01:00

OMG!! The congratulations just kept pouring in after my previous post, I really have to be the happiest person on earth to have so many sweet people saying such kind things about me and wishing me good luck. THANK YOU each and one of you!!! *smiling from ear to ear* Mwah!

Today is a very special day for TCR - we released our 100th palette. Drumroll!!! It is also the first palette for the month of March, which also means we have a new sponsor, the Swedish company Pion Design!!

You can find our web shop at www.piondesign.se We sell our original designed scrapbooking collections to retailers as well as the end consumer.

We are very happy that we now have retailers in lots of countries. If you are looking for a retailer in your country, please contact us at jenny@piondesign.se and we will help you.

If you are interested in becoming one of our retailers we kindly ask you to register as a company customer in our web shop and we will get in touch with you http://shop.textalk.se/en/login.php?tws_shopid=12164&tws_mode=n...

We are lucky to have a great design team with members from all over the world. Take a look in our blog http://blog.piondesign.se/ to see their beautiful projects.

Hopefully our papers will give you many creative and happy moments!

Many of you have come across the wonderful, soft and romantic papers of Pion either on internet or perhaps IRL too. "Pion" means peony and I often have English speaking people ask me how on earth it is supposed to be pronounced. First of all, forget anything remotely close to "P-Y-O-N" or "S-I-O-N". Remember, Swedish is a Germanic language where the letters are pronounced individually, not pulled together like in English.

So here goes: P-E-E-O-O-N. (the P-E-E is pronounced exactly like the English word spelled in the same way *wink wink* and the O-O-N exactly like S-W-O-O-N with a long O sound)

I made two pages for this 100th palette, but will share one with you today and the other one on Tuesday.

First the palette and inspo photo:

Yummie! just taste the names: Truffle, Forget-Me-Not, Rose Garden and Vintage Pink! Oh là là!

This is the first of my pages for the 100th palette:

First of all I want to say that the photo is not my own, I found it on internet. I just fell for the soft feel of the little chap sitting there by the sea in his denim dungarees.

The chippie thread spools are from Australian Maxine's Melange which has now closed down business. The lace is from Panduro as are the wooden buttons. I used a small doily from Meg's Garden to mist subtle patterns but it doesn't come across at all when photographed. Then I ripped it in pieces and tucked them under the cluster. The cherub with a string of hearts is cut out from one of the papers.

Several sheets with absolutely adorable things to cut out; banners, titles, letters, butterflies, Valentine's images like this one, vintage stamps, borders etc.

Today both hubby and I took a day off from work, switched off our mobiles and forgot everything about emails. The day started with de luxe breakfast at a very modern but really cosy hotel by the water in central Stockholm. It has been a sunny day with blue skies, but the March wind was very cold and nippy.

This is a view over the poshest street in our town; Strandvägen. Wherever you go in Stockholm, you see water and some more water and believe it or not, but around the next block you'll see - water!

Spring is definitely on its way but in the farthest covest the ice hasn't quite melted yet.

Now we're nearing the end of this post, so with these happy faces of husband and wife I say bye bye and thanks for your kind visit!

Toodelipip! have a wonderful wonderful weekend! xoxoxo Eila

Happy News and UOAS 15FEB2012 Letters in the Sand

2012-02-27T12:45:00.000+01:00

Woohoo! there is cause for celebration in the Sandberg house as I have some really wonderful news to share with you.

Yesterday Meg's Garden announced the names of its new DT member, and what a list of names it is!!

26 February, 2012

New Design team members announced

Hi

It was an extremely difficult task to select the new members of the Design Team. Thank you so much to the many applicants.

The new members who are joining the existing team are:

Eila Sandberg
http://dollopsofscrap.blogspot.com Can you believe it - that's me!!

Heather Jacob from Australia

http://heatherartandlife.blogspot.com.au/

Yuka Hino from Japan

http://nsnlso.blogspot.com/

Gabrielle Pollacco from Canada

http://gabriellepollacco.blogspot.com/

Vickie Alberto from Canada

http://simplypaperandcreativity.blogspot.com

Cathy Cafun from Australia

http://cathycafun.blogspot.com

These applicants have their work cut out for them - the current DT have done some fabulous projects & have left a hard road for them.

Please have a look at their blogs, become a follower & cheer them on.

Welcome ladies to Meg's Garden Design Team - the garden of papercraft delights

Bye for now

Meg

Oh my oh my, me working alongside all these famous people and the existing DT. Wow! this is so huge to me, I just want to kiss everybody that I meet and shout from the roof toop. Life is good, life is very good! THANK YOU Meg!!

Today I also would like to share a page that I've made for the UOAS 15FEB2012 challenge.

Journalling criteria/theme: HOLIDAYS/VACATION

Have you printed out all those photos from your last holiday/vacation or most favourite holiday/vacation? We would LOVE to see them and hear all about it. With the theme of holidays/vacation for this challenge, we would love to hear about: your favourite holiday/vacation of all time or a favourite place you would LOVE to take a holiday in . Or how about the last holiday/vacation you went to? Maybe you have not travelled yet? Then tell us about your DREAM HOLIDAY /VACATION destination.

Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and theme and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote.

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch.

All the papers are from the huge DT pack that Marie of Maja Design donated for her sponsorship month over at TCR. I have oodles of gorgeous papers left and will definitely be using them for many pages to come. The papers are all so beautiful that I don't want to cover them up in layers and embellishments, which makes my Maja layouts a bit less decorated than usually.

The title of my page is Letters in the Sand and yes, the pun is intended though now it sounds rather silly when I say it out loud ;)) The alphas that I tucked into the sand in the glass bottle, very quickly got swallowed by the sand so I stuck a couple more outside the bottle to make the hint a teeny bit clearer.

The journalling is on that little tag that can barely be seen. More of it further down in my post.

The metal trinket is from Meg's Garden and the little raindrops were a gift from colourful Rebekah Krueger in the US. The misting on the butterfly doesn't photograph particularly well, sorry about that. I have used 3 different shades of sublte green and yellow before spraying it a bit in black for added definition.

A semi circle of white and red liquid pearl, almost like a daisy chain.

Green lace is from Webster's Pages. German scrap is from Meg's Garden as is the string of pearls. I misted the chippie word Memories in several hues of pale pink before chalking it in two different tones of reds. That doesn't photograph well either - bummer!

and the other side

Other people's handwriting is often difficult to read, so here it is typed as well:

Living in a country with 4 months of snow, makes us long for the sun and warmth. When summer finally arrives, we get crazy with happiness and worship everything Mother Nature offers. The best vacation is summer in Sweden, the midnight sun, the balmy nights, the blue special skies over Stockholm, the archipelago and time to just enjoy a glass of wine on our balcony, and sunburned shoulders.

I first masked/chalked the grass in white/lime/pale green before adding the other elements on top.

The sun is shining in Stockholm today and it is about -6C. Very good for the kids who have winter school holidays this week.

Back to handling invoices and writing expense reports, but first- lunch!

Toodelipip! xoxoxo Eila

TCR "99 Life by the sea - a double-pager

2012-02-25T08:04:00.000+01:00

Happy glorious weekend to you all!

Yesterday I sent off my boss to Barcelona, Spain where THE major event of the year in our industry takes place next week. The week leading to her departure was insane, so many details to coordinate and to have confirmed before she left the office. Have only begun to breathe normally again and can actually eat a meal in a longer time than 4 minutes flat.

Today I am taking hubby out for lunch and later in the week we are both having a day off from work, just the two of us spending the day together without mobile phones or emails.

Am also so happy to say that my jury speech at the Office Professionals Award gala dinner last Monday went really so well. It was a magical evening with some top rate Swedish artists performing. I cried when one of the guys fell down on his knees before the winner and starting singing "Unforgettable" - the wonderful wonderful song that Nat King Cole used to sing. I just say GOOSEBUMPS!

Now on to the release over at The Color Room where we have reached our 99th palette! so next Friday is a milestone for sure.

It is the last week of Swedish Maja Design's sponsor month, and once again Marie has incredibly generously donated fabulous papers for the DT work with. The palette is based on the collection called "Life by the Sea.

We are working with yummie colours like Caramel Sand (pale orange), Sky Blue, Burgandy Beach Hut, Deep Sea Blue.

And here's the inspo photo and sweet sketch by Lydell Quin:

There is something deeply ingrained in the Nordic soul that makes us love and yearn for wide open space, for moments of solitude away from the crowds, watching the ever changing water of the sea and feeling the soft rounded cliffs of our shores.

Mother Nature has her firm grip on us so no wonder the papers of the collection really spoke to my Swedish-Finnish self and this is what I came up with.

First the left page, and then the right page separately.

I fussy cut the fish from a paper from KaiserCraft Hunt & Gather before mounting them on acrylic. The muslin was misted in 3 different blue colours and my hands were a colourful testimony for 3 whole days.

These photos were taken by my friend K last summer and are from Sweden's east coast up north. The name of the fishing village is called "Rönnskär" which can also been seen above the pics.

Shabby weatherbeaten banners, a very typical sight in the archipelago. The small compass is from Australian online store Meg's Garden.

I cut out triangles from linen fabric and then stapled the paper banners on top before sandpapering them and picking threads from the linen.

And then the right page:

The photos were taken by my friend K and show the harbour of Rönnskär.

A generous blob of stone glue and then finegrained sand poured on top. Let it dry completely before giving it a squirt of TA glimmermist in Sand.

There's to give you a feeling of Swedish summer in the archipelago! many months to go before we can sit and drink our coffee to the sound of lapping water, seagulls soaring and the tug tug of fishing boats.

Lots of mundane things to be done today but somehow feeding the dish washer and going grocery shopping actually feel soothing this particular weekend, just normal every day stuff.

Enjoy your weekend wherever you are! take care of yourself and your loved ones. Toodelipip!

xoxox Eila

CSI #7 Nature

2012-02-22T05:57:00.000+01:00

After the previous very long post, this one is going to be comparatively short.

CSI released it's 7th palette on Saturday our time.

Just like the produce in our February images celebrating Exotic Vegetables and Starfruit Month, CSI is growing and growing! We're so excited by the enthusiastic participation of all our members! Our gallery has been rocking with gorgeous work!

Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits is our generous sponsor this month, and to celebrate that, several of our members have used inspiration from the Boys Rule kit and blog as jumping off points for our layouts. You'll read about that when we post our layouts in the gallery.

We are thrilled to announce that we have a new Detective: Michele Singh has joined the CSI design team. Michele's creativity and magical work caught our attention from the very first layout she added to our gallery, and we just had to have her on the team. We are certain Michele's designs and creative journaling will inspire you!

This week's Case File is a very challenging one, but we're sure you'll enjoy the process and end up with a beautiful layout. That's what challenges are all about--pushing ourselves to try something new!

So with that said, CSI Members, grab your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 7 . . .

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

You must use all 5 colors (plus neutrals, if you like).

turnip - 229.188.230 - light violet highlights on the turnips
carrot greens - 178.207.176 - light green part of the carrot tops
pink - 247.152.185 - highlights on radishes
dark gray - 116.114.111 - table
red - 203.31.43 - darker parts of radishes

EVIDENCE DETAILS

Choose two (or more)of the following elements to include on your layout:

distressing
wood or wodgrain (could be paper or embellishments)
metals
an element to hold things, like an envelope or pocket
stripes (as inspired by the watermelon)
cluster similar items together
combine straight lines with organic shapes (i.e., shapes with curves)

JOURNALING DETAILS (TESTIMONY)

Choose one (or more) of the following to inspire your journaling:

3-2-1: 3 most important things, 2 questions you have, 1 word to sum up the story.
Use all your senses in your journaling.
Grocery list: Journal in the form of a list.
The roots: What is the origin of the picture or what's underneath the story?
Inspiration Words: natural, vital, root.

We trust we've left enough clues for you to solve the case!

The deadline for completing Case File No. 7 is Sunday, February 26, 11:59 p.m. EST.
Thus, you have a week plus the two weekends to complete your layout.

We can't wait to see what you create!

And here is my page:

It was the photo of the veggies that set me going on the theme for my layout this week; nature. Immediately came to think more of the feeling, rather than a specific photo, of when we had our garden allotment and that is also what my journalling is about. The joy of seeing the seeds transform into seedlings and then into actual plants. Tucking into that very first young carrot pulled out straight from the soil. Mmmmm ...

I have used papers from Swedish Pion Design's collection To Father and from their 2011 Christmas collection.

The chippie butterfly is from Imaginarium Design and I have chalked it in three different hues of purple and pink.

The chippie title is from Dusty Attic and I chalked it in 4 different shimmering blue and green shades before touching up the edges in brown. I also made the little bird nest from muslin and coco nut fibre, the eggs are simply mini muslin squares that were rolled into little balls with the help of glue.

The little gloves are cut out from a Tilda paper. Reading my own journalling, I really remember what it was like; both the hard manual labour but also the blissful moments of harvesting our little gems.

Well, I didn't have any photos of radishes per se so I cut out these from a Tilda paper. The frame as well as the florals under the cluster, are cut out from some KaiserCraft Chanteuse papers.

Punching and distressing of the edges.

Do you see the mini clogs there in the cluster? I used to wear clogs when working on our allotment, and these remind me of all the endless completative hours of weeding and breaking up the soil. To get the dirty brown look, I misted the originally pine coloured clogs in Tattered Angels Sand and Suede before chalking them.

The organza bloom is from Australian Meg's Garden. The berries are cut off from a Petaloo flower vine.

Splatter and misting with Tattered Angels Sand, Coffee, Gold and Suede as well as chalking of the edges in Tim Holtz Black Soot and Cat's Eye chalk in Chestnut Roan.

Et voilà! we've come to the end of this post. Thank you dearly for taking the time to look at my page!

Have a lovely rest of the week! take care! xoxox Eila

Snivel and cough + TCR #98 Always Time For a Coffee and special love from Latvia and US

2012-02-19T12:42:00.000+01:00

FIRST OF ALL I WANT TO WARN YOU - THIS IS GOING TO BE A VERY LONG POST! so if you're not interested in seeing pics or reading about my recent trip to London, or Liebster Awards, you might want to scroll down to my TCR #98 double-pager "Always Time For A Coffee".

Got home from London a week ago and was thrown into the hurly burly of my office work the second I stepped in through the door. I had actually been missed! *giggle* good to know the work I do is actually noticed :))

Seems I had a crowd of stowaways with me home too. No wonder as half of my group actually visibly developed different stages of flu while we were having dinner one of the evenings. Scary stuff! Well, I didn't exactly have time to be off sick again so thank you Sudafed (non-prescripted miracle pills) for coming to my rescue. Don't want to know what's in them but they certainly unblocked my congested nose, took away sinus ache, head ache, fever, and allt he aches and pains so typical of a flu. Only thing is, one HAS TO sleep once the effect of the pills has subsided. So that's what I've been doing this whole week, fallen asleep at 08.00 p.m. every single evening.

As promised, here are some more photos from my trip. I finally got to do what I've been wanting to do for so many years, but with hubby in tow, never got around to doing it; going to the fabulous museums of London!

Among other things, I had pre-booked tickets for the Cecial Beaton photo exhibition at the Victoria & Albert. Cecial Beaton used to photograph for glitzy magz like Vogue so his photos of the Royal Family and particularly Princess and then later Queen Elizabeth II, are utterly dreamy. What a stunning beauty she was when young!

Also discovered a fab exhibittion by and on Annie Lennox (yes, the one from Eurythmics) at the V&A. One of the large photos of her was so cool, check this out. They had inserted lace onto the photo, and embroidered the bracelets on her wrists, her hat had a beautiful bling button/brad. Totally liftable for a scrappy page! Sorry the photo is kind of wonky, I had to take it with my mobile phone when the guard wasn't in sight. Naughty me, I know ...

I find it very difficult to appreciate modern art, but this time I really tried to give the whole concept a fair shot. Have to admit these installations did not make me change my mind, so sorry Saatchi Gallery and Tate Modern, you won't be seeing me again!

I am always amazed at how Mother Nature does her thing no matter what. It was snowing in London but still these flowers had it ingrained in them to bloom in February. Does anybody know what they are, know for sure that they are not roses:

I also had a stroll through Hyde Park which is huuuuge. On its left side is Kensington Gardens with Kensington Palace where Princess Diana used to live. It is being renovated at the moment, but the beautiful Orangery it its garden was open. There was a photo crew taking shots for their new brochure and website. All of us sitting there were asked for permission to be photographed, so whaddya know, I might end up slurping soup in their new brochure! :))

I had the loveliest of surprises posted on my blog both while I was a way and only this morning as well; two 2 sweet kind scrappy friends have nominated me for the Liebster Award! Liva Kalnina in Latvia and Kristie Taylor in the US. I am absolutely amazed and so very grateful for the love that you peeps are awarding me!

Liebster is German and means 'dearest' or 'beloved' but it can also mean 'favourite'. The idea of the Liebster Award is to bring attention to blogs with less than 200 followers. So, in the spirit of good fun i am passing this award on to five other bloggers. Please stop by and visit them.

Here are "The Rules"

1. show your thanks to the blogger who gave you the award by linking back to them.
2. reveal your five picks for the award and let them know.
3. post the award on your blog.
4. bask in the love from the most supportive people on the blogshare-other bloggers.
5. finally and the best rule of all,have fun and spread the love!

First, go check out Liva's blog. She lives in a country where scrapbooking is practically unknown and supplies have to be found and invented from everyday objects unless imported at exorbitant cost from abroad. Liva's creativity is fantastic and the warmth and sense of humour that she exudes is utterly beguiling:

CLICK HERE FOR LIVA'S BLOG

Kristie is an amazing lady with the energy of two. Not only does she work as a nurse and has 4 boisterous children, she also finds the time to create bold and vibrant projects in addition to being on several DTs. Her experiments with colour, mediums and texture can make anyone green with envy. Wish I could have 1/4 of your energy sweetie!

CLICK HERE FOR KRISTIE'S BLOG

After having agonized for what seemed like an eternity, HOW on earth could I choose only 5 people among ALL of the fantastic and amazing friends out there, the list could easily have amounted to 50 names, I finally picked the following 5 fabulous ladies:

1) LINDY GILLESPIE my numero uno Aussie team mate over at The Color Room. Through thick and thin, through sickness and heath, Lindy has always been there as a pillar of strenght, comfort and joy for me. Words cannot describe what I feel about this gorgeous, beautifully talented and infinitely graceful lady, simply don't have enough words Lindy! I dream of meeting you IRL one of these days, Brisbane is on top of my list when the day comes for my Australian trip and then comes Brisbane and Brisbane again. Life would be very empty without you Mrs G!

CLICK HERE FOR LINDY'S BLOG JUST ANOTHER DAY

2)   Gobsmackingly talented and versatile MARIANNE in Norway. She is just plain out of this world! Not only is she a scrapping goddess, she is the most wonderful and sweet person you can imagine. Love you to bits Marianne!

CLICK HERE FOR MARIANNE'S BLOG "SKORPIONENS REDE"

3)   Wonderful, cheerful always encouraging and so so sweet PEARL LIU in Singapore. Pearl gave me the final push that made me start my blog and I am eternally grateful to her for doing it! I always visit her blog if I need happy inspiration, she is an awesome cardmaker too! her sense of humour always sends me into hysterical giggles!

CLICK HERE FOR PEARL'S BLOG "PEARLS PAPERFCTIONS"

4)   JASMINE SHEA in Australia has been visiting me even when I myself didn't think anybody knew I existed. From the first moment she has spread her kindness and shared her wonderful scrappy journey with us. This beautiful lady certainly deserves a bath tub full of love!

CLICK HERE FOR JAS' BLOG "JASMINE'S SCRAPVINE

5)   HELEN TILBURY in South Africa. I have never met a person like Helen who has that special knack of treating each individual that she meets in such a personal and kind way. Even if I know she is having a hard time herself with different aspects of life and health, nothing of it ever shows in the love she leaves. Having said that, I haven't even begun to describe what a huge impact she has had on my scrapping!

Just as I went to copy the link to her blog, I saw her own post about Liebster and gosh! she had me on too! Cross my heart, we have not made a joint decision to award each other, promise! nor have we decided on the same names! it's simply the old saying of "great minds" and the miracle of love. I firmly believe that what you give out definitely comes back and a little love has never ever cost anything!

CLICK HERE FOR HELEN'S BLOG

Well, Helen Tilbury decided to enter 10 names instead of 5 so I've simply decided to copy her and continue with 5 more names!

6) DEBBI TEHRANI must be the kindest soul on this planet! and what an amazing scrapper she is! I would so love to sit silent as a mouse next to her when she does her magic on her 8 x 8 layouts, simply stunning attention to detail! I think this gorgeous lady was sent from heavens to make our lives a better place and all of us touched by her words, so so much better scrappers and human beings. Debbi, you know how I love and admire you!

CLICK HERE FOR DEBBI'S BLOG "LITTLE SCRAPS OF MAGIC"

7) TINA WALKER oooooh oooooh fabulous faboulous Tina, what would I do without you? Mr Moose and Miss Flikka, your stellar pages shooting stars into my eyes and your friendship bring so much joy into my life. Thank you sweetie for being you and for your unbelievable inspiration! Mwah!

CLICK HERE FOR TINA'S BLOG A DOG'S LIFE

8) BELINDA SPENCER my fellow Aussie DT mate at The Color Room. We couldn't live more separately lives, she in faraway Australia and me in the northern outpost of the map but Belinda's heart has no boundaries and knows of no distances. I am so incredibly happy to have this fantastic lady in my scrappy life, everything she puts her dainty little hands on turns out magical. I adore her gentleness and stunning inspiration. So incredibly happy to be working with you Belinda! xoxoxo

CLICK HERE FOR BELINDA'S BLOG MY HAPPY SCRAP PLACE

9) BENTE FAGERBERG my pal who lives in Sweden and who brings so much joy and fun into my life. It was abolutely fabulous meeting with her on a couple of occasions last year. Mrs F has a true artistic flair and spirit winning the hearts of each and one that she touches with her vibrant personality and fantastic talent. This lady has been featured I don't know how many times on Two Peas and even scraplifted by the famous Karola Witczak herself. Despite her worldwinning tours, Bente is a down-to-earth person and one simply has to adore her!

CLICK HERE FOR BENTE'S BLOG PAPER AND GLUE HEAVEN

10) is for all of you fantastic, unique, shining, loving people out there!! I have put you as number 10, but the truth is you are all number 1 for me. Thank you for lightening up my day, for making me love scrapbooking and for just being who you are, all of you!

NOW I've finally come to the double-pager I made for TCR #98.

Swedish Maja Design is our sponsor for the third week and boy has Marie, the owner, given us in the DT, absolutely paradisiac papers to work with. How about the colours; Lovely Lilac, Sage Green, Very Violet and Darkest Navy.

The Maja papers can be bought from numerous Scandinavian online stores. For a list of resellers in other parts of the world, please go to their website that you will find IF YOU CLICK HERE

They also have an official blog that you will find IF YOU CLICK HERE

Just look at the stunning mini album that Lydell Quin made for her nana's 90th birthday!! it serves as the inspirational photo and rightfully so!

I made a double-pager for the #98 palette and could easily have created 5 more given time off from my day-time work. This collection is called "Ska vi ta en fika?" means "Shall we have a coffee?" and consists of 16 double-sided heavenly thick papers. They have motives of berries, cake recipes, coffe cups, tea pots, stripes and Prince of Wales checks as well as soft flourishes and elegant swirls.

First a photo of both pages side by side and then I will show left and right as well. I am really sorry but the photo of both pages has a funny size when posted here, pls click on it so that you can see it properly on Flickr instead! thanks!

As this is a very long post, I am leaving out all the descriptions and lists of products used. Please just ask if there is anything you want to know about the pages.

LEFT PAGE.

AND THEN THE RIGHT PAGE.

THE END

... I promise you!

Brave, brave gals who actually made it through the whole post! Thanks a million times for bearing with me and for your visit!

Have a wonderful wonderful week! I'll be sitting in the jury for the Swedish Office Professionals Award on Monday evening and have to make a speech brrrr!

Cheerio! xoxoxo Eila

Darling I'm home! catching up with TCR and CSI releases

2012-02-13T16:29:00.000+01:00

It's Monday and I'm back on home turf. My goodness, I am totally bowled over with all the comments on my previous post! sooo many! THANK YOU so so much!! and yes, hubby was mighty chuffed reading the praize tee hee!

For the first time in the odd 30 years that I've been going to London, I've now actually seen it snowing there. Really so weird seeing snowmen in Hyde Park.

England being England, it was smouldering hot and stuffy indoors in the conference room and freezing outdoors though the temperature was a mere springlike -3C or so. Back home we had sub zero temperatures of down to -30C up north.

Even if the aim of my trip this time was not shopping, I can still report that colour blocking very much à la Mary Quant op pop 1960's, and unusually fruity and vibrant spring colours alongside with classic navy/red/white/creams and black/amber/dusky blue/creams were filling all the shops. Stripes are definitely hot hot as are dots.

And yes, I really did meet with sweet Doreen aka Tinkerbell! here are a couple of shots to prove it.

My colleagues and I had booked a whole pod on the London EYE for ourselves so of course Tink and I had to sip some bubblies together with the other ladies. L-O-V-E-L-Y!!

Yup! that's me to the left!

After our ride, Doreen took med to the former town hall of London, now converted into a posh hotel, where we had yummilicious champagne afternoon tea. Think I was a bit tipsy having drunk more than 2 glasses of the golden drops tee he ;))

Time truly flew and before we knew, the London sky turned pink and the lights across the Thames shone like fire flies and it was time for us to say good bye. Words don't describe how fantastic it was to meet Doreen IRL and with the flutter of her gossamer wings, off she went on the Jubilee line. Next time Doreen, next time we'll make sure to have more time!! Thank you so much for a gorgeous day!

With a little peek at the nook of the breakfast room of my hotel - cosy huh! - I temporarily say farewell to London. I will share some more pics in my next post.

Catching up with both TCR #97 and CSI #6 releases, this will be a longish post.

First the inspo picture from CSI:

We are astounded by the response we've had to our little challenge! Debbi actually had to create a second album for Case File No. 4 because we went over the limit for the number of photos that fit into an album! We had over 100 layouts for that challenge. Thank you so much for your enthusiastic participation!

We have Boys Rule Scrapbook Kits as our February sponsor. If you haven't had a chance to check out their kits and their cool concept, you must. And you must play with us this month because you could win one of their awesome kits!

We continue our February theme in honor of Exotic Vegetables and Starfruit month with another gorgeous color scheme that is making me wish for summer to get here. We're sure you will find the colors very versatile. This week, we've arranged our team's layouts by dominant color or background, according to the order of the colors in The Scheme.

CSI Members, get out your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 6 . . .

Detailed clues, as promised...

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

goldish-green: 220.213.82 - curtains
orange: 244.153.13 - oranges
brown: 164.134.78 - front of table
yellow: 253.240.111 - lemons
brownish-black: 40.26.3 - lamp

EVIDENCE DETAILS

Choose two (or more)of the following elements to include on your layout:

glass or wood transparent elements
wood or wood-grain accents
combine two different patterns that have the same colors
fabric
pleating
metals

JOURNALING DETAILS (TESTIMONY)

Choose one (or more)of the following to inspire your journaling:

Tell three things about your subject.
Use a transparency or vellum "container" to hold your journaling.
Illuminate your subject: shine the light on something the viewer wouldn't know by just looking at your picture.
Inspiration words: clear, comfort, shine. --Use one or more of these words as a jumping-off point for your journaling.

I have to admit I have always found orange a little bit challenging, so this week's case file was quite tricky for me. Even though I'm not pleased at all with my page, this is what I eventually came up with:

Only 6 months ago I would not even have considered buying Jillibean, but here I am, with a couple of her collections represented on this page! And check out - no Prima blooms on this one either!

Everything except the buttons, the two small chippie hearts and the wood leaves are from Jillibean.

I made the accordion bloom from the same orange paper that can be seen under the photo for instance. The leaves are from KaiserCraft, I cannot remember where the buttons are from.

I suppose it doesn't come a complete surprise to you that DH is mean with the vacuum cleaner. He had the whole apartment cleaned when I came home yesterday. The cats were brushed and they stood all on parade when I fell in through the door last night. Oh the joy of coming home to loved ones!

I have seen so cool multi-layered hearts on internet, but when I tried making them, they turned out anything but cool. Also my sewing machine decided to give up on me with a big bang, almost shredded the pleated paper.

Now over to TCR #97 where we are in His Room this week with colours bearing yummie names like Royal Blue, Chocolate Brown, Cool Cream and Dusty Burgandy.

It is the second week that Swedish Maja Design have sponsored the DT with papers, this time from their fabulous collection called "Vintage Winter". Marie, the owner, has been unbelievably generous with her donations - we are not having just one RAK at the end of the month but one RAK each WEEK (the same collection that is featured respective week)!!

Here is my page:

Looksie - I finally got to stick down some Prima blooms on my layout! :))

The boy rolling a big snowball and the snowman on the other side of the chippie flourish, were cut out from one of the papers. The stamps are BoBunny and from my January kit from Swirlydoos, as is the brown glittery horizontal strip.

Yummie dusty Attic flourish that I have painted in white acrylic paint and doused thickly in Ice Stickles Crystal Ice and Star Dust. The white rose is from Prima and I very very carefully just touched some of the petals with a cotton bud dipped in Tattered Angels Midnight Blue before drenching the whole rose in Tattered Angels Dazzling Diamonds to make the blue bleed. Also the rose got several layers of the same Stickles as the flourish.

Once again the photo is not mine, I found it on Finnish internet. It could have been though as this is exactly what can be seen here in Stockholm. Only thing is I don't have a red tricycle sitting on my yard!

Beautiful Tania Martyns once had an overlay that she had stamped with white swirls and flourishes. I had this stamp from BoBunny sitting on my desk and found a sheet of acrylic in one of my drawers, the result was this big snowflake stamped with Gesso. I really like the effect if I may say so.

The flowers are from my January Swirlydoos kit. I also misted some gauze in different blue hues before kneading and pulling the gauze. My goodnes, it must have taken me 3 days to get rid of the blue stains from my hands! note to myself: use rubber gloves next time!

The cross stitch letters forming the word "snow" are from Marianne Design.

Et voilà! we have reached the end of this post. Absolutely wonderful having you for a visit, you know how I read and treasure every little word you leave for me! Thank you so much for taking the time to have a look at my pages!

Have a souper douper week! Toodelipip! xoxox Eila

OUAS 1FEB2012 Mon Amour and an experiment

2012-02-06T05:00:00.079+01:00

Hi there!

If it's Monday, 6 February and if this actually comes up it means Blogger has done what it's supposed to and my husband really is as I describe him in my page for the 1FEB2012 challenge over at Once Upon A Sketch - Mon Amour (My Love).

It means this darling wonderful husband of mine has actually helped me upload my page to the OUAS site and checked that my post has gone live while I am physically in London! Thank you Bengt! I know he's having a peek :)) Promise to get you your fave chocs from Heathrow!

And thank you Helen T for guiding me to the right place on Blogger!

So here's first the Journalling Criteria/Theme: LOVE

February 14th is Valentines Day here in Australia and in many parts of the world. For this challenge we would like you to create a project about the one MALE you love. And we do not mean just your partner or spouse. We mean any male in your life.

Ideas for journalling: You could journal about the love you have for your son, father, grandfather or a special person in your life or any pet.

Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote.

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch:

Well, there are two boys in my life but this kind, generous, warm hearted and incredibly understanding and supportive man is the love of my life. May I present to you, my husband Bengt:

Everything, except the Prima alphas, on this page come from my January kit from Swirlydoos. Fantastic kits with gorgeous flowers and anything you can wish for to match the papers. The only downside is that I live in Sweden and the kits are sent from the US, which means they take for ever to reach me.

Do you see the soft white snowflakes tucked in here and there? They come all the way from South Africa and are a gift from sweet sweet Helen Tilbury. Thank you darling!

This pic of DH was taken back in 2006 when we had an extended weekend in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was February back then as well and truly freezing. Just like Stockholm is right now. The schnapps and beer that we had with our delicious Danish smörrebröd knew their place and the warmth they created was certainly well needed. Lots of coffee breaks and lots of assorted Danish sustained our rather painfully cold sightseeing around town that weekend.

The man who gets teary eyed when at weddings or cuddling our cats, when seeing a romantic film on TV or thinking about me being away for a whole week, has lots of emotions but those who don't know him, cannot see any of it. Instead he takes to doing practical things to show how much he cares. After our 12 years together, I know him inside out and the intake of breath tells me what he is feeling. He is such a soft and tender man, but incredibly fierce and fearless should he need to protect his family.

In the kit from Swirlydoos was also something I've never tried before; Mica Flakes from Melissa Frances. I have my belowed "snowpaint" that I've mentioned umpteen times before, these flakes are really a new discovery worth trying again. Love the glittering fluffy flakes!

And there we are at the end of this experimental post. Thank you infinitely for taking the time to come for a visit! See you in a week!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #96 Life's Simple Treasures and sponsorship by Swedish Maja Design

2012-02-03T07:20:00.000+01:00

Happy Friday to all of you wherever you are!

Stockholm is freezing with temperatures around -12C (that's 10F)and snow coming down in thick sheets. Had to go and buy myself knitted leggings to pull over my thin nylons or else I think the nylons would have been frozen solid onto my chubby legs.

Cold weather gives a perfectly good reason for eating comfort food and high energy desserts, just think what seals would do without their padding! ;)) Come to think of it, I am rather spool formed at the moment but as most people look like Russian babushkas wrapped in woollen layers, nobody sees any difference anyway ha ha!

Today is release day over The Color Room and we have a new fabulously generous sponsor for the month of February; Swedish Maja Design! CLICK HERE and you'll come straight to their Store Finder and with another click, also to their brand new blog in English.

Scandinavians are already very familiar with their gorgeous double-side papers of an unprecedented lusciously thick and supreme quality and now they are expanding their business over the puddles to the US and Australia. Marie, the owner, told me she is currently in negotiations with several interested Australian and American retailers so you ladies will soon be able to buy them on your home turf! A little bird also told me there might be a scrapbook store in Adelaide soon to offer them too ...

This week's palette is with pretty pretty Lolly Pink, Cool Cream, Powder Blue and Celery Green. Talk about promises of spring!

Here's also the inspo photo and Lydell's gorgeous sketch:

Maja Design has sponsored the DT with a MOST generous pack of the loveliest of papers for all 4 February palettes. I promise you ladies, you will be absolutely stunned seeing them and the versatily of the DTs projects created!

Not only that - we will be having WEEKLY RAKs donated by Maja Design! each week one lucky randomly drawn winner will win the featured collection of that special week! you only have to play along and use the colours as close as possible on your project!

All February palettes have been specially designed by Lydell using 4 different collections from Maja Design. The collection that inspired this week's palette is called Crea Diem.

This is what I came up with:

The photos are not my own, I found them on internet. That's a major problem now, I simply don't have enough photos of my own as we don't photograph much in winter. Can't you just smell those raspberries still warm from the summer sun and deliciously juicy. Pour some ice cold double cream on them and sprinkle some muscovador caster sugar on top - aaaahh! that's life's simple pleasures for you captured in a bowl!

Resin flowers and roses from KaiserCraft.

The square, heart and wings were plain raw chippies from Australian online store Maxines Melange before I dressed them in papers from the Crea Diem collection. I have also lightly tapped on some TH Black Soot around all edges.

To my great sorrow Maxine has had to close down her online business as it was impossible for her to work fulltime and then pack all orders at night. Totally understandable but what a loss to us! I so hope Maxine will continue to show us her stunning work in other places, that girl really is on a planet of her own where her star shines the brightest of them all!

The cherry blooms and branches just called out to be fussy-cut and who am I to resist!

All the Maja papers have beautiful beautiful patterns, some very delicate and subtle. I really couldn't cover up all of this beauty - just look at those swirls and flourishes! I stamped the itty bitty dusty pink bloom and the brown mini doily print here and there on my page.

More raw chippies from Maxine's that have been dressed in Crea Diem papers. The strips at the bottom are actually the back of the manufacturer's strips from the bottom of the papers. All Maja papers have the most wonderful prints at the back of those strips. Here I've combined strips from 3 different papers.

I am leaving soon for a combined pleasure and business trip to London where I will meet sweet Doreen Spencer, also known in blogland as Tinkerbell. As I haven't figured out yet how to make Blogger release time scheduled posts, I will alas have to leave blogging for a week.

Hubby and cats will reclaim the sofa, the remote and rely on take-away dinners from Mama Thai while I'm away. Well, I'll enjoy every minute I have in London. Have pre-booked tickets for a fabulous exhibition with Cecil Beaton's photos at the V&A as well as to the Museum of London where they have a splendid exhibition celebrating Dickens' 200th birthday anniversary.

I know for sure there will be cause for drinking champagne at at least one occasion too! So by all means hubby, you go and have your tin foil containers of Massaman Curry at Mama's, I'll think of you fondly when I nibble my little hoeurs d'ouvres.

So time's up, thanks for popping by! wish me bon voyage and chat again after 13 February. Till then, take care, be good and have fun!

Cheers! xoxoxo Eila

CSI #4 When Day And Night Are The Same

2012-01-31T07:04:00.000+01:00

Hello lovely ladies!

This post will be short and sweet, at the moment I am working with 2 conferences that run in parallell and do practically nothing else than sleep, eat and work this week.

So, the leisurely ponderings on life will have to wait until my next post. I'm taking you straight to the release of Case File 4 of CSI which was released last weekend.

It's hard to believe January is winding down so soon! What a fantastic month it's been, and we're looking forward to another fantastic week as we wrap up our January theme. As we approach our fourth week, we already have almost 400 members and 234 beautiful layouts in our gallery! We continue to grow each day. We can't wait to see what's in store in the coming months. Please help spread the word by sharing our site with your scrappy friends.

If you haven't yet had a chance to take a crack at our Case Files, you will definitely want to make time this week so you'll have a chance to win a prize from our generous January sponsor, The Dusty Attic.

We've been so inspired all month by our guest designers from The Dusty Attic, and this week is no exception! Mistra Hoolahan and Michelle Grant contributed amazing layouts again this week. And our special Guest Detective, Nadia Cannizzo, is back with another gorgeous page.

We're very excited to announce that Brit Sviggum has joined the CSI design team and she's now an official CSI Detective! Brit's unique style captivated us, and we knew we had to have her join the team. We will be growing our team in the coming months, and we plan to have a design team call at some point, so if youwould like to become a part of the team, be sure to keep playing along--you might just catch our eye like Brit did!

Our final Case File celebrating Lewis Carroll's January birthday is inspired by a fascinating remix of Alice in Wonderland by Elena Kalis, who does amazing underwater photography.

Now, CSI Members, get out your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 4 . . .

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

TIPTOPE IN THE TEAL - 2.136.130 - the wavy part of the water on the left
GILDED FRAME - 207.149.67 - reflection of her legs (I think) in the water)
PATENT LEATHER - 14.9.6 - her shoes
BOUYAN BEIGE - 245.238.220 - water reflection highlights
WATERY TEAL GREEN - 138.175.162 - mid-tones of the water

Please check out all the prompts for JOURNALING DETAILS (TESTIMONY)and EVIDENCE DETAILS on CSI - looooots of inspiration there for your!

The deadline for completing Case File No. 4 is Sunday, February 5, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Thus, you have a week plus the two weekends to complete your layout.

If you haven't visited CSI yet, go have a peek HERE

And here's my page:

In my post on the OUAS 15 January challenge, I wrote that I want to explore other aspects of scrapbooking than just scissors and paper during 2012. This page is the first of these explorations where I have used gesso and lots of mists.

The title "When Night & Day Are The Same" comes from this photo. It was taken in the Stockholm archipelago at midnight - YES at 00.00 - on a Midsummer's Night some years ago. You can see that hubbs and I are rather bundled up with double fleece sweaters and scarf, so the light and the water give a false impression of warmth.

Some KaiserCraft Madame Boutique yummies in there and a white painted Dusty Attic flourish.

Love the swirls and puddles of the glimmer mist on the gesso. Used a flourish stamp on the semi-wet gesso before misting. Lesson learned, use a larger stamp or else the pattern won't come across. I very very lightly dabbed the surface of the gesso rivulets with a finger sponge and TH distress ink in Black Soot to make them come out just a tad better.

But I wouldn't be me if I didn't finish with some flowers :))

Thanks so very very much for still wanting to come for a visit even if I haven't shown you the same courtesy in a while, I have all of you in my heart!

Have a lovely week! see you on Friday!

Much much love, xxx Eila

TCR #95 Picking Mushrooms

2012-01-27T18:42:00.000+01:00

Still dark, still cold, still snowy, but yay it's Friday! Treated myself to something called "semla" which I suppose would be what is also called a cream bun. Only ours are cut in half, filled with almond paste before a generous dollop of cream is added on top.

Eating them is serious business, Swedes are divided into those who want to put this de luxe bun on a plate with hot (yuk) milk and eat it when it's all soggy. Others say the right thing to do is to eat it as it is with a glass of cold milk on the side. And the third group insist on having a cup of coffee with it. Well, I leave it to your imagination to guess which fan club I belong to, I can say as much that I certainly don't like soggy buns LOL.

They look like this:

Friday doesn't only mean eating "semla", but also release day over at TCR. It's the fourth and last of the palettes specially designed by Lydell Quin for Meg's Garden. Lovely Meg has provided the DT with papers to work with and we thank her warmly for her generosity!

How about Chilli Pepper Red, Musk Stick Pink, Gum Leaf Green and Licorice Black for yumminess! makes me want to go out and buy my fav salty licorice candy. Just look at that sketch, don't you just itch to scrap it!

The DT certainly did and boy have they created fabulous pages! Here is what I came up with;

I found the photo of this little girl called Gudrun, 3 years old, in the archives of our county museum on internet. It was taken for an article in a local newspaper in the summer of 1954. Little Gudrun has her dolly pram full of the forest gold - mushrooms!

The "frame" is simply TA mists in Olive and Mel's Diner (red) that I have traced on white cardstock with the nozzle, straight out of the bottle.

All the strips were leftovers sitting on my desk. Of course it wasn't April when this photo was taken, but I thought it looked cute anyway. The heart shaped buttons are from my stash.

A DA chippie fern peeking out there under the Prima autumn leave, a small white doily from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy. Fussy cut buds and blooms from a Meg's Garden paper.

I just love the mushrooms which can be found on another paper (Embossed Silk & Satin) than the one featured for the current palette (French Bird Cage). As a matter of curiosity, the brown ones are edible and the red ones with dots take you straight to the morge, but they are pretty to look at :)

The bird cage is fussy cut from the featured paper called French Bird Cage. I think both the red/white dotted paper and the black/white papers are by Crate but cannot remember which collection/collections as those squares were what I had in my stash without reference.

The red floral paper is also from Meg's Garden and is called Ramling Rose.

Go have a stroll in Meg's Garden, you will be enticed and seduced by what you see! Click HERE
and you'll find yourself straight in her delightful online store. There you will also find the link to their blog.

Happy browsing! and with that I wish you a wonderful weekend!

Thanks for your visit and hope to see you again! Cheerio!

xoxoxo Eila

CSI #3 Coffee and 15JAN2012 OUAS Cultivating

2012-01-24T07:49:00.000+01:00

First day in the office yesterday after having been away for a week and whaddya know - only 613 emails waiting in my inbox. Dunno if it's because I am such a Very Important Person or just people copying me on everything they send ;)) Still, each and one has to be read and actions taken.

This Tuesday in Stockholm is cold, dark and with streets dressed in snow. Just like any ordinary morning in January in other words. In my previous post I mentioned what a joy it was feeling the taste of coffee and coffee is the subject of my CSI case file 3.

Flickr decided to be naughty to me and wouldn't allow me to upload my pics, so I have to do it from my own computer which means you cannot click on the photos and get a bigger image. Will update this post as soon as things have sorted themselves out with Flickr.

Now over to CSI.

From our January sponsor, Dusty Attic, we have two more design team members, Natasha Naranjo Aguirre and Nancy Winter, joining Mistra Hoolahan and Michelle Grant as Guest Detectives this week. We are sure their gorgeous work will inspire you! Nadia Cannizzo, our January Special Guest Detective, will be back next week.

Our third Case File from January's Alice in Wonderland series is a departure from the first two Case Files, which had vibrant color schemes. This week's "Scene" inspired a softer palette which could be perfect for heritage layouts but is also versatile for pretty much any topic, as you will see from the layouts below.
Now, CSI Members, get out your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 3...

Blogger was in a bad mood too and wouldn't allow me to re-size the gorgeous inspirational photo, so below you can actually only see half of the image. Really so sorry for that.

(Be sure to scroll all the way down for RGB codes, color descriptions, and more thorough explanations of the journaling prompts.)
Presenting a stunning collection of layouts created by our Guest Detectives from The Dusty Attic...

The CSI team have also created the most gorgeous projects, go check them out! Always so amazing to see what an incredible spread of styles is represented depending on what has triggered our imagination.

Here is my page. Going rather clean and flat this time and letting the composition speak for itself.

Brown cardstock, followed by punched pale lilac paper from Swedish Maja Design. Then the back of a Prima Pixie Glen paper on which I have also written my journalling. The top paper is actually brown though it looks like mauve or dusty purple when photographed. It's from K&Co Flora and Fauna.

In the corner a chippie flourish from Dusty Attic. I chalked it in Champagne, Gold and touched up randomly in Oyster White and Dusty Mauve though the IRL effect doesn't come across at all when photographed.

The golden metal lock is from Australian online store Meg's Garden. The yummie yummie white buttons are custom made for me by gorgeously talented Ivana Camdzic. The roses are from KaiserCraft and the photo of the old-fashioned floral coffee cup is from internet. My own cups are far from this dainty and pretty.

Two handstitched circles.

The pink fabric flower is from Prima, gosh I do love those fluff balls! The metal trinket is either BoBunny or Prima, cannot remember which, and the button on top of the crocheted mini bloom is from Prima. The violets are cut out from a paper from Swedish Pion Design.

The cream bow is actually from a local DIY shop and meant as a wall decor. It's paintable but I left it raw.

A strip of lace and a couple of safety pins. The journalling says:

"Quiet mornings with coffee belong to the best things in life. It doesn't cost anything, only time. The moments when I have time to enjoy a leisurely cup, feel so much more precious! Coffee is the key to a perfet start to the day for me!".

And now to the page I made for the Once Upon A Sketch 15 January challenge. Another clean and un-dimensional page. Can you believe it - not a single Prima flower on it!

All the papers are from the brand new spring collection from Norwegian Tilda. It hit the Swedish stores only a couple of days ago. You will definitely be seeing me scrap these papers!

The title of my page is "Cultivate". It should say "Cultivate Colours" as it's about my wish to explore other aspects of scrapbooking than paper. The photo is a reminder of all the mists and paints that I have in my drawers, some still have their original sealing left.

I really look forward to this new year - 2012, a whole year full of everything I can imagine. It depends on what I plant myself and cultivate into bloom. That's why I have used the big colourful flowers in my LO.

I have also put seed bags on my page with the most beautiful images and names to remind me that I am the maker of my own flowerbeds. The dragon fly is a symbol of creativity. The ruler tucked in there also symbolizes that life is measured for us and we can decide to fill it with happy memories or limit ourselves to squares and lines.

And that's it for today. Thank you so much for having a peek! I know there are so many of you lovely ladies that I haven't visited in quite a while, I haven't forgotten you and will make amends soon. Thank you for remembering me too!

Much love,

xoxox Eila

TCR #94 Bringing in the Hay

2012-01-20T18:50:00.000+01:00

Once again it's Friday and the week has just swooshed by! Thanks to all of you sweet ladies for your get-well wishes! I am happy to report that I actually tasted the coffe I was drinking this morning and could smell the tantalizing wafts coming out from our little corner bakery. Life is returning to normal pretty soon - yay!

Heard a really silly song played on the radio this morning and then I couldn't get it out of my head. I just say Barry Manilow ... Had to make my cool 1980's disco moves to the utter shock of the cats who really looked like sphinxes watching mummy making a fool of herself. What the heck, nobody else there to see me and if they had, well - who cares!

What do you say about Buttercup Yellow, Sage Green, Off White and Avocado Green? if that isn't spring totally sprung I don't know what is!

The Australian online store Meg's Garden are the January sponsors of The Color Room and this is the third palette using the beautiful papers from their newly released paper collection. The palette is specially designed after the sweet paper called "Green Toile". Meg's Garden have very generously donated papers to our DT to work with and what a joy it has been!

Check them out HERE

Here's the page I made:

The sharp observer will notice that the paper I have used is not the "Green Toile" but another one from Meg's Garden, it's called "Wild Flowers Field" and has the same colours.

I started with a houndstooth paper from MME Lost & Found 2 as cardstock. On top of that I have brown cardstock with punched leaf border and on top of that, another grey & white checkered paper from October Afternoon and on top of THAT, grey cardstock before the beeeeeautiful patterned paper.

I unravelled some of the hessian and made a bundle that I tucked in there next to the berries and sunflowers that I have cut-off from a Petaloo vine.

The grey & white alpha stickers are from October Aftrnoon.

Really cool guys on a warm summers day in about 1950. The handsome bloke who is number 2 from the left, wearing a white hat, is my FIL.

The brads are from MME L&F 2.

Subtle misting and splatter in different green, brown, and yellow hues.

The brown cardstock alphas that form the word "buds" are from Lily Bee

The papers are so incredibly beautiful in themselves that one really doesn't need a lot of texture or mediums to make them stand out.

Have a little something up my sleeve coming up in March. Might have something to share with you in April too and what do you know, even something in June and July too .... Making those silly moves again just thinking about how bountiful life is to me.

I will be back on Tuesday when I will share my CSI case file 3 with you.

Toodelipip! enjoy your weekend!

xoxox Eila

CSI case file 2 "Cottage Dreams"

2012-01-16T22:42:00.000+01:00

It was ages since I had to stay at home from work because of the flu, this one is a rather persistent one. My nose has a rather interesting shade of pinkish-red and I cannot live without Kleenex. Getting better by every day though, thanks very much :)

What an amazing week we've had over at CSI! the case files keep pouring in every day.

Last week, we were so excited to announce that The Dusty Attic is our January sponsor. Mistra Hoolahan and Michelle Grant, our guest designers from The Dusty Attic design team, and Nadia Cannizzo, our special January guest designer, are here again this week with absolutely gorgeous inspiration.

We continue our January Alice in Wonderland inspiration with another image from the Tim Burton film. The colors this week are so lovely and bright and positively dreamy. You will again see how versatile the color scheme is and how the look of this palette can change dramatically, depending on the neutrals you use and the proportions of the colors you design with.

Now, CSI Members, get out your forensics kits and get ready for some sleuthing as we reveal Case File No. 2...

Detailed clues, as promised...

COLOR DETAILS & RGB CODES

Absolem blue - (blue with a VERY slight touch of green) - 104.164.185 - dress
Raspberry reverie - 152.45.75 - flower to the left of Alice

Lost in lavender - 186.189.220 -purple flowers
Wonderland yellow - 242.235.132 - yellow flowers
Untamed teal - 72.178.175 - big leaf on the right (just under the curvy swirly plant)

JOURNALING DETAILS

Choose one (or more) of the following to inspire your journaling:

* Look at your photo and journal in a stream-of-consciousness way (free-writing).
* Document an adventure.
* Use this quote as inspiration: "Good advice. If I listened earlier, I wouldn't be here. But that's just the trouble with me. I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it." -- and journal as advice
Inspiration Words: dream, journey, subconscious

EVIDENCE DETAILS

Choose two (or more)of the following elements to include on your layout:

* flowers
* architectural elements (e.g., gates, fence, windows, bricks, etc.)
* sheer elements
* swirls/flourishes
*something stone-like (interpret that any way you wish!)

We trust we've left enough clues for you to solve the case!

The deadline for completing Case File No. 2 is

Sunday, January 22, 11:59 p.m. EST.

Thus, you have a week plus the two weekends to complete your layout. (See count-down timer on the right-hand sidebar of most pages.)

We can't wait to see what you create!

And here's my page:

As Debbi says, it is always so fascinating to see what the DT come up with, even if we have the same palette as starting point, all our pages look so totally different! This time I have chosen to use a lot of the neutrals and the colours only as accents.

My journalling is about a dream that I have always had; to move to England when I am retired and buy myself a cottage with thatched roof. It doesn't come as any surprise to anyone I'm sure ...

A mix of Prima and Petaloo in the cluster and a peek of the teal under the dotted brown KaiserCraft paper.

Raw chippie gates from the French online store Embelliscrap. Cannot remember if the metal trinket is from Prima or from BoBunny. I do know that the cute little clock face is from Australian online store Meg's Garden. The blue birds are cut out from a dimensional sticker from Danish Tilda.

Here it is, the cottage of my dreams! English cottages always have rose gardens and the floral paper from Meg's Garden that I have used as an inset under photo is just that - a rose lover's delight!

The little cute thread spool is a gift from darling Lean de Ruiter in Holland - thanks sweetie! the brass mini scissors are from Meg's Garden as is the cut-out pile of suitcases which I took from one of Meg's Christmas papers. So this is what I am going to do when I am an old and wrinkled woman: pack my bags and head for England with my cross stitching and scrapbooking scissors (or perhaps they are for cutting off dried roses in my beautiful lush garden?)

A view from the side just to give you a dimensional peek and with that I say bye for now!

Thanks for your visit and have a happy scrappy week folks!

xoxox Eila

TCR #93 Adored & Cherished and #93B Elsa's Sweet Dream

2012-01-13T14:16:00.000+01:00

Hello peeps!

Once again it's Friday which means release time over at TCR. We have a gorgeous set of palettes for January, specifically designed for the new ranges of products at MEG'S GARDEN, who are sponsoring us for the month of January.

This week brings us a gorgeous vintage inspired palette from Her Room.

I made two layouts for this palette, the first one I called "Adored & Cherished".

This little man is the youngest member of our big family of aunties, uncles, cousins and grandchildren. He's the son of my youngest cousin.

Unfortunately I had to leave the photo of my page a tad too dark or else the lovely pattern of the pale pink backing paper would have been lost entirely for the viewer.

Green pearl sparklers from Webster's Pages as flower centres. The birdie is from KaiserCraft Sweet Nothings.

I cut out the centre of the medaillon and placed a pink label from another paper from Meg's Garden in its place. I also stamped small hearts in dusty pink chalk randomly over the borders of the page.

A metal bookplate from Tim Holtz that I gessoed and misted in Vintage Pink. White buttons strewn around and some thread that I also misted in the same pink.

Here you can see the colours better. That label to the left is of course cut out from one of the MG papers. The photo is matted with both patterned paper, a doily, a circular lacey chippie misted in Olive Vine from the French online store Embelliscrap, a round floral die-cut from KaiserCraft and a sheet note paper on top of a patterned paper from MG.

A resin key hole from Melissa Frances and a dito in metal from Tim Holtz.

Fussy cutting and more of the misted thread, a resin Prima bird and KaiserCraft roses.

The second page is with the same range of papers from Meg's Garden but I've mainly used the fussy-cut flowers and misted/masked my white cardstock for a very subtle pattern.

I've called it "Elsa's Sweet Dream", a totally ridiculous title I know, but it has to do with what's in the glass she's dipping her paw into and the Swedish word "Saft" on the trinket in the top left cluster.

Here I've used white cardstock as base and then cut out the green frame from a MME Lost&Found 2 paper.

This is our Elsa last summer. Hubby and I were sitting on our balcony having a glass of raspberry fruit-drink (SAFT in Swedish) when she jumped up on the table and stuck her paw into my glass before I could do or say anything. The next second she licked her paw and dipped into the glass again. That was the end to my cool drink! Nothing else to do but let Miss Elsa have her drink.

This is also the way she drinks her water: dips the paw, then licks it. Our Alice on the other hand, likes to drink hers straight from the tap while Max our boy does it the classic way; from his bowl. Who says cats don't have personalities?!

A teensy glimps of the misting/masking.

My pal Lindy in Brisbane sent me pretty pretty white crocheted doilies, here's one peeking out under the bottom cluster. A script vine from Prima, chippie birdies from DA, some mixed flowers from one of my kits from Swirlydoos and some fussy cutting tucked in there.

That's all for today my friends! I apologize for not being my usual chirpy self, but today I have to admit that I might have been bitten by a bug. I slept for 13 hours last night and woke up sweating and freezing at the same time. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

Take care, have fun and see you next time!

xoxoxo Eila

OUAS 1 January 2012 challenge - Thankful

2012-01-11T19:39:00.000+01:00

First week in the office and life is starting to assume MACH3 speed again, gone are the lazy days of the Holidays!

CSI was launched on 6 January and got a flying start! really such a fantastic thing with more than 300 people checkin out the site that first day!

While I still had some spare time last weekend, a made a little something for the Once Upon A Sketch 1 January 2012 challenge. First the prompt and Nadia's lovely sketch:

Journalling Criteria/theme: New Years Eve!

Our theme this time is New year's Eve. We would like you to journal about your feelings around this time of year, or tell us about your most memorable New Year's Eve. Where were you? Who were you with? What did you do? Why is this one memorable? Note: the photo that you use for this challenge does not have to necessarily be from New Years Eve. For example, if you spent New Years Eve with your family you can have a photo of your family taken ANY time of the year.
Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote.

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch.

Here it is, my Thankful page:

The dotted dark mauve backing paper is from Swedish Maja Design's Let's Have Coffee collection and the rest is from Australian Meg's Garden that I have written about so often of late. They are the January sponsors over at The Color Room.

The photo is not mine, I found it on internet, but it still evokes that happy festive feeling. I actually prefer pink champagne to any kind of wine, just love the fizzy bubbles! lilac matting is also from one of the Maja Design papers. Silver figure 2011 is from American Crafts, a bunch of silver and clear stick pins, a music note piece from DA that I've chalked black. Flowers from Prima.

These birdies are just way too cute and I fussy cut to my heart's content with these papers. Love the bright and vibrant colours of the pinks, fuchsias, reds and dark blue, mauves and purples.

Hubby and I have spent so so many New Year's Eves doing all sorts of fantastic things, really splashing out and having the full monty of both black tail, tuxedo and dark suit. Celebrating in really grand style in many places.

However, as the journalling says, the most memorable one was the one we just had. We spent it at home, together. Instead of making promises for the year to come, we talked about our dreams and plans. It was an emotional evening as we also talked about everything that had happened, both good and not so good, in the year that we were about to leave behind.

We have so so many things to be thankful for, and it's those things that make our life a cornucopia.

I moved the horizontal element in the sketch a bit further up. Here I have used different strips of German scrap and misted them in different hues of lilac and purple. Under it can be seen another layer of stamping.

Thank you so much for popping and having a peek! Wish you a lovely rest of the week!

Cheerio! xoxoxo Eila

TCR 92 Constance and gala opening of CSI celebrating with Tea At Bettys

2012-01-07T00:27:00.002+01:00

What a glorious day it has been this day in Stockholm! the sun was shining, the sky was blue and the temperature was springlike and mild. At this time last year, we had a zillion Mount Everests of snow piled up everywhere and it was really cold. Now there are several bushes pushing delicate leaves and I've even heard birds sing! Pray we don't get a freezing surprise over night.

Friday saw the release of palette #92 over at TCR. Gorgeous vintagey colours of Antique Blue, Eggplant, Custard Cream and Rustic Rose.

And as the cherry on our cream cake, we have Meg's Garden as sponsors for the month of January! Meg has very generously sponsored the TCR DT with their gorgeous new paper collection. I have posted about Meg's Garden before and shared both cards and pages that I have made with their yummie romantic papers. I will have the link to ther online store and blog at the end of this post.

Here's first the inspirational palette and Lydell's beautiful sketch:

This is what I made:

The girl in the photo is not unknown, her name was Constance and she lived in Paris with her family during the Belle Epoque. In this pic from 1902 she is about 8 years old.

Double stitching around the border, the eggplant/purple doesn't show here in the photo as it's stitched on the black cardstock. IRL the blue and purple stitching give a nice touch to the page.

The locket and the mauve velvet flower bud are both from Meg's Garden. The photo in the locket is of Constance as a baby and her young mother.

The shabby paper matting has been through quite a bit of working on before looking this way. Check out the plain vanilla card that I started off with!

I saw a cool tut over at Miss Art's a few months ago. Alyssa McGrew showed how to decorate chipboard alphas with this method.

First you smear gesso or molding paste on your plain surface and let it dry just a bit before adhering a ripped off piece from an old book or from a newspaper on it. Wait for a short while, not too long though or the paper will just stay put! gently pull off your paper strip and see how the print transfers onto your gessoed/pasted surface. I also wanted small pieces of the actual book page to stick as well as some of the card to tear off in places so I just repeated the sticking on and pulling off until I was satisfied.

Next step I pulled out my mists. On this one I have used TA Sand + Creme de Cocoa + Tattered Rose + Old Lace + Vintage Pink + Suede and Hydrangea. Might have added a squirt or two of some Creme de Rouge and Timeless Lilac as well :)

The stamping is made with clear acrylics from Elise's Huis. I used ink nbr 171 in Pine Cone from Versa Color. (no, it's not pine green! it has a subtle lovely shabby brownish vintage hue.)

The swirly chippie corners are from Dusty Attic. I painted them in TA Glimmer Glam in Gold and rubbed them slightly in the same Versa Color in Pine Cone to offsett the shine of the gold.

The die cut Eiffel tower and the stamp are both from KaiserCraft's new collection Sweet Nothings. Boy am I longing to start working on the papers, they are gooooorgeous beyond words!

Being me, I had to have flowers of course. Mauve pansy and bejewelled organza flower are both from Meg's Garden, as are the tiny forget-me-nots. The blue border swirl is also from DA. First I dabbed it in a metallic blue hue that I haven't got the name of as the label has fallen off the bottle. Then I randomly used ColorBox pigment chalks in Gold Brocade, Sapphire Silk and Warm Violet all over it.

With the scraps that were left over from making my page, I made a card;

The label is fussy cut from another of the lovely papers that can be found in the online store of Meg's Garden.

Click HERE for Meg's Garden online store where you will also find the link to their blog!

*Drumroll* the waiting is over! finally we have opened up shop at CSI - Color ... Stories ... Inspiration ...!

Check this out!

Welcome to our very first Case File! We are so excited to unveil our challenges. We are thrilled to have The Dusty Attic as our sponsor and delighted that their design team is joining the CSI team as guest designers for the month of January. This week, we have Mistra Hoolahan, Michelle Grant, and Jenny Burns joining us. We also have Nadia Cannizzo joining us as a special guest designer for our launch of CSI.

As you will see from the designers' layouts, the palette is very versatile, perfectly suitable for scrapping your recent holiday photos but also perfect for so many more themes. For the other elements of the challenge, we have a range of options, all inspired by our inspiration image, aka "The Scene." At the bottom of this thread, you will find some more details about this Case File, such as the RGB codes for the colors and more thorough explanations of the journaling prompts.

Since the CSI Case Files are brand-new to everyone, you will want to take some time to read the article "How the Challenge Works." Also, please take a moment to read the guidelines herefor some logistical rules.
In case you haven't figured out from Johnny Depp peeking through the magnifying glass on the front page preview, this month's inspiration images are all inspired by Alice in Wonderlandto celebrate Lewis Carroll's January 27th birthday.

So without further ado, we are pleased to reveal Case File No. 1...

Click HERE to come to CSI and more of Case File No. 1.

... and here's my page;

I very often journal at the back of my pages but bringing it up on the page itself, really is something that makes it easier to take in the whole layout in one glance. Journalling is also often something that many find difficult.

All papers are from the BoBunny Welcome Home collection.

A swirly frame from Dusty Attic, from the same sheet as the corners I used on my TCR #92 Constance page.

I just love how dainty and cute the waitresses look at Bettys Teahouse, not only in York which is my local hang-out when I'm there. They used to have little lacey flimsy things in their hair but not any longer. You know, the same kind of ruffles the uppstairs maids in the BBC TV series "Downtown Abbey" wear, little cap-like old-fashioned thingies.

Stamps are from Elise's Huis and the metallic embellie is from Meg's Garden. The little tea tag is from one of my fave morning tea bags, comes from Dilmah (naaaw, seriously does it now?!).

Isn't it silly the little things we sometimes have to do before we can enjoy something! Yup, I need the full trimmings before I'm ready and set to enjoy my visits.

The bling on the chandelier is liquid pearl nr 904 in Bronze from German brand Viva Decor. The overlay is a snippet from a Hambly sheet.

The doily is from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy. The die cut sentiment is from BoBunny Welcome Home collection as is the trinket tucked in at the bottom.

The jewel stick pins are from Meg's Garden and the raw chippie swirl under the cluster is from Dusty Attic.

The flowers are a mix of Petaloo and Prima. The fabric bloom next to the sentiment is from Precocious Paper's Etsy shop.

What a glorious day it is!! Thanks for popping by and for any beautiful comment you might want to leave.

Todeloo! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #91 Sunny Days and a card for a very dear friend

2011-12-30T16:51:00.000+01:00

By the time some of you read this, we will have entered into a brand new year - 2012. Wherever you are - a very Happy New Year to you all!

I am really so overwhelmed and infinitely grateful for the beautiful cards and generous gifts that I received from sweet sweet scrappy friends for Christmas. You know who you are ladies!! THANK YOU! Mwah mwah mwah!

Today is Friday and release day over at TCR, we have palette #91 with wonderfully vibrant and happy colours. How about Sunflower Yellow, Poppy Red, Powder Blue and Sunny Orange!

I won't be longwinded, here is my page:

After having made quite a few multi dimensional pages and a substantial number of Christmas cards for the passed few months, I felt like creating something one-dimensional and flat for a change. When I flipped through these October Afternoon papers, I just fell for the cute little old-fashioned country houses and went from there.

There is a Swedish lady who has the most fantastic blog where she writes about her ancestors and their lives. Wonderful research done, colourful encounters with people long gone, and fantastic photos that tell lots of stories too. This photo is from her blog and shows her grandmother and her grandmother's brother sometimes 1910-ish or so.

And then a card for a very special and dear friend.

A little package made from a 20 x 20 cm square doily.

Unwrapping the layers and revealing the card itself.

The doily and the papers are from the Australian online store Meg's Garden which you can find HERE

Meg's Garden is the January sponsor of The Color Room and each week during the month of January, one of their DT girls will be featured with the layout that she has made for that specific palette. The DT of The Color Room will also be showing what we have created with products from Meg's Garden.

Stickles in Star Dust here and there gives a lovely shimmer.

And here you can see the full card with its doily front.

Only a week left to 6 January and the launch of CSI - Color, Stories, Inspiration

The excitement is building up, soon soon soon ... Even before we have gone live, members are increasing in number by every day. The news is spreading in blogland! and the fabulous thing is, I'm on the DT of this new awesome challenge site owned and run by the one and fabulously only Debbi Tehrani.

The challenges consist of three parts: colours, inspiration, and journalling (that's the story). Plenty to set your mojo on fire in other words!

For those of you who cannot wait, here's a top secret sneak preview of our first challenge:

I will remember 2011 as the year when I made so many wonderful scrappy friends throughout the whole wide world. Thank you ladies for your loving support, steadfast encouragement, many giggles, invaluable personal chats, and so many tips and tricks on how to. Simply - thank you for being you!

Hello 2012 - watch out, here we come!

xoxoxo Eila

OUAS 15 December challenge "Sweet Nothing and something just for me

2011-12-26T19:30:00.000+01:00

So we've spent the passed few days eating, taking a nap, eating again and drinking some coffee before eating again ... Always love Christmas and am equally happy to see it wave farewell till next year.

Feels good to look forward to an entirely blank page just waiting to be filled with happy new memories and beautiful colours. I just know 2012 will be an awesome year!

Even had time to make a page between taking naps and checking the content of the fridge. It's for the 15 December challenge over at UOAS.

I flipped the sketch and went horizontal instead. I also moved the title more to the right.
So here's first Nadia's sketch and then my page.

Journalling Criteria/theme: Our Christmas traditions.

We would love to hear how everyone spends Christmas Day. Even if you do NOT celebrate Christmas, what do you do on Christmas Day?

Here's our Miss Alice in her favourite chair by our bay window. Just look at that little tummy of hers! This certainly is a picture of total relaxation. Alice makes the most adorable little sounds when she sleeps, almost like snoring.

Christmas Day is the day of Sweet Nothing, we do as little as possible and do it together. Read our new book, see a film on the box, take a bath, drink more coffee and each chocolates.

All the papers on this page are from October Afternoon's Holiday Style.

And then a little something that I made waiting for Christmas, hence its title; "Waiting". It hasn't been shared anywhere before.

Here all the papers are from Maja Design's Vintage Winter collection.

We normally have plenty of snow for Christmas and that's what I thought we would have at the time that I made this page. Nope, none was to be had. It was a sunny day and about -3C, but no snow in Stockholm.

I used the Crafter's Workshop branch and bird template that I have used on several layouts before. Smeared molding paste through it and sprinkled plenty of fine glitter on it before it had dried. I also used a hefty amount of Stickles Diamond and Star Dust around the page to get an icy feeling.

A Dusty Attic chippie frame that I painted in chocolate brown acrylic paint. For matting I used cardboard that I first touched up with TH distress ink in Aged Mahogany before smearing lots of Stickles Gold on it.

I made a little book from white cardstock, it's about 3 cm wide x 4 cm high. The cover I made from brown paper from a paper from Pion Design's Waiting for Santa collection. A Prima trinket and diamond. The key is from Tim Holtz.

The angel wings I bought at a local store, Panduro. The white flower is first a couple of really old plain white Prima Pillar paper flowers that I've touched up with Stickles Star Dust, and then I added a Prima silk bloom on top.

Some Prima leaves and Stickles and white pearls as seen from the other side.

A couple of small brass bells tied together with an organza ribbon in gold and a cut off piece from a Prima winter branch.

I've been asked how long it takes for me to create a page and how I store my layouts. Well, I just pile them up in IKEA cardboard boxes that have a lid. It's impossible to keep them in binders as they are so bulky. As to my creative process, a page normally takes a minimum of one day to create, more often two.

Hope you're having a wonderful time with your families, enjoy the moments of Sweet Nothing!!

I won't wish you Happy New Year not just yet, I'll be back on Friday!

Till then xoxox Eila

OUAS 1DEC in the top 5 among featured pages and TCR #90 Family Tradtions

2011-12-23T13:31:00.000+01:00

Here in Scandinavia we are counting the hours till Christmas as we celebrate on Christmas Eve 24th rather than on Christmas Day 25th. DH is doing the last round to the supermarket and I'm busy cooking. The cats are certainly feeling that something special is coming up and are more mischievous than they normally are. Been chewing on my hyacinths and sitting vigilance just outside the closet where I keep the pressies. Who says cats aren't clever?

To my utter delight and surprise my "Snooze" page was among the top 5 featured pages of the UOAS 1 December challenge. Erin Blegen from US won with her amazing layout called "Putting on the Spritz". Congrats to all ladies on your fabulous work and thank you DT for voting on my page! This is such a wonderful pre-Chrissy present!

Here's my page:

Today we also have the last palette of Christmas inspiration over at TCR. A very sophisticated and elegant palette of non-traditional colours:

We're working with Magenta, Silver, White and Black in Her Room.

This is my layout:

In my family it is tradition to write Christmas letters and lots of Christmas cards to family and friends near and far. The photo is of DH doing just that. I myself have more than 50 cousins who live all over the world, so it's quite a pile of cards that waits to be written :)

While we write our cards, we have glögg (recipe in one of my previous posts) and nibble on the first batch of Christmas cakes. Have some Christmas music playing in the background and lots of lit candles to get us in the right mood. This part is one of our most treasured Christmas traditions.

I have used papers from Teresa Collin, Basic Grey Black Dress and other bits and pieces that I had in my stash. I punched out circles of the different papers for the baubles, dressed them in snippets of Prima bling and lace. Cut out the tiniest little squares of black cardstock and placed with a tiny pop dot on the bauble before adhering a pearl and then "drawing" the hanger in Stickles Gold rather than glueing a ribbon or twine.

The grey alpha stickers are October Afternoon and the black ones are of course my faves at the moment - Prima. The silver "23" is American Crafts.

The little toy bear and bunny peeking out from the cut out quote and frame, are from Danish Tilda. Once again silver "25" from American Crafts. Little white liquid pearls dotted around the cut out "Christmas".

Some more baubles. I also smeared out a thin layer of glue on the baubles and poured both fine glitter as well as Shimmerz Enamelz in Jack Frost for some additional bling.

A scrummy stick pin from Meg's Garden and an acrylic star pin tucked in there on the left next to the photo.

Cut off snippets from a Prima script branch, a rose from KaiserCraft and a Prima jewel.

It's not easy to see, but there are two Prima chandelier jewels "hanging" to the far left. I've "drawn" their hangings in the same Stickles Gold as I did for the baubles. If you click on the photo, it'll come up bigger and you might have a better view.

A close-up of my DH.

On the front page of TCR are also some of the Christmas cards that I have already shared with you here but also some from the last and final batch that I promised to share with you today.

I made some tags that I then used to make cards with. Here are first the tags and then I show you what the finished card looks like. Everything on the tags and cards is from Danish Tilda.

With the words of Emily Matthews I ring the Christmas bells and say Merry Christmas to ye all!

"From home to home, and heart to heart, from one place to another
The warmth and joy of Christmas, brings us closer to each other."

xoxox Eila

TCR #89_Enjoy The Moments That Make You Smile, more Christmas Cards and the launching of CSI

2011-12-17T19:49:00.000+01:00

The evening has embedded Stockholm in a soft layer of snow. It's still not cold enough to make the snow stay very long, but it looks oooh so pretty floating down from the sky.

Only one week to go and Christmas feel is definitely in the air. Invited my hubby out for breakfast out on town yesterday and this morning. Certainly gives the day a rather nice start and we sure needed it, gosh the crazy crazy mob out there!

Thank you sweet ladies who took the time to visit my blog and to leave such beautiful love on my previous post despite the busiest of time!! it really warms my heart and makes your comments even more precious to me! Thank you!

Another beautiful un-Christmassy palette was released yesterday over at TCR. Here it is:

The inspirational photos are from the advent calendar that super-talented and super-sweet Julie Winks made for TCR's Christmas Inspiration. Here's the gorgeous calendar for you, just click on the photo and it will come up bigger:

Absolutely dreamy! Now to my TCR #89 that I have called "Enjoy The Moments That Make You Smile". As you no doubt understand, it was created quite some time before the 15 December challenge was posted over at UOAS. What is it they say, great minds think alike! I promise, I have not had any sneak peaks of Nadia's pretty sketch.

Over the years and as I've grown older, it is always the little moments in life that bring me the greatest joy. This photo is not my own but it still reminds me of my childhood and my mother's battered and stained recipe book. She loved to bake.

What looks like little specks of blue, are flakes of Shimmerz Enamelz in Jack Frost that I have misted with TA in Electric Blue and mixed before sprinkling onto the page on top of a thin layer of glue. It has THE most fabulous glitter to it IRL!

The chippie title from Dusty Attic I painted in chocolatey acrylic paint and left it without any other treatment. The little silver foil stars are mounted on pop dots and covered in Stickles Waterfall.

All papers except the music sheet, are from Swedish Maja Design's collection "Vintage Winter" that I have used before but then with patterns in blue.

The strip of caramel lace and bling is from Prima. The little white doily cut in half is from Martha Stewart.

The flowers are Prima. There is a little felt circle with a punched out butterfly topped by a jewel nesting on the right. It comes from Precocious Papers' Etsy shop that I have written about before, check it out HERE

I made a ginger bread figure from brown felt. Took a cookie cutter, touched up the part that cuts with white liquid chalk and pressed it on the felt before cutting out the figure. Then I took Waco pearl maker in white and traced the cookie, looks like icing when it has dried.

I used a Dusty Attic French Flourish under the flower cluster, it looks like THIS

I first lightly and randomly painted it in Adirondack dabber Snow Cap. Before it had dried I misted it in TA Electric Blue and sprinkled fine glitter on top, then I zapped it with my heat gun. Another heavy spray with the mist and another sprinkling of glitter.

I repeatedly stamped a Christmas flourish in gold ink before placing the chippie title on top of it.

Some blue brads from MME Lost&Found 2 around the title.

Here's a cute little measuring "spoon" or whatever it's called from a toy shop. Some star anise and dried cloves for that extra feel of baking. Here you can also see the Christmas flourish that I have stamped in brown around the page.

Here are some cards that I made earlier this month. I have the last batch to share with you in my next post just before Christmas.

This one is for a very very dear and close friend. The stripey paper is MME, the fussy cut pointsettias are from last year's K&Co Evergreen Christmas collection. The gold flourish is from Dusty Attic, I have just covered it heavily in Stickles Gold. A pair of small golden Christmas bells with a silk ribbon and then a cluster of Prima and KaiserCraft flowers. The silver alphas are American Crafts.

I've used papers from Meg's Garden for the next 4 cards. Lots and lots of fussy cutting on all 4 of them.

On this one I dabbed snowpaint to give some more feel of snow on the roof top, the tree branches and around the card. Leaves, ice blue flowers and a snippet from a jewel branch, all from Prima. The white rose is from KaiserCraft.

Very unusal colours for Christmas but oh so yummie!

And now on to Danish Tilda for the last two cards.

On this last card I have stitched strips of fabric, lace and ribbon onto a piece of canvas before cuttting out the heart shape. I made that little rolled fabric bloom and burned my finger real bad, beware of glue guns!

PSSSS .... The word is spreading like bush fire in blogland, something is happening on 6 January 2012.

Word is absolutely right too! A new challenge site called CSI - Color ... Stories ... Inspiration will be launched and boy are we in for some great challenges!

There's a sneak peek for you HERE

Sooo wonderful to see so many familiar names on the list of DT members, YAY!

Anna Karin Evaldsson

Debbi Tehrani

Eila Sandberg - that's lucky me!

Fi Kenward

Jenny Evans

Keandra Perkins-Willis

Nancy Burke

Shaunery Wharton

Susan Stringfellow

Sylvia Mellander

Tina Walker

Wendy Kwok

If you are a scrapbooker who loves a great challenge, be sure to sign up as a member of CSI and stay tuned for our challenges to begin on January 6, 2012!

And on this very happy note, I have come to the end of this once again long post. Enjoy the days that are left to Christmas - remember to breathe, stop for a second and just enjoy all the little things!

Much love to you all, xoxoxo Eila

OUAS 1 December 2012 challenge - "Snooze"

2011-12-12T22:18:00.000+01:00

I promise you this post is a very short one! I only want to share the page that I made for the OUAS 1 December challenge with you.

The journalling criteria/theme is: The thing I look most forward to in December.

Write at least 2 sentences on what you look forward to in the next month. December is a festive month so your journalling could be about the Christmas season, the holidays, the presents or if you do not celebrate Christmas what does December bring for you that you look most forward to? Note:You layout DOES NOT have to be about Christmas! It can be about anything December brings.

Other ideas for journalling: an annual holiday or celebration, a specific event such as putting up the Christmas tree or pre Christmas traditions you might have leading up to Christmas, family time, snow covered fields or warmer weather, time off work, school holidays, change of weather, new season fruit.

And here is Nadia's lovely sketch:

I called my page "Snooze", quite self-explanatory if you read the journalling and look at the photo to the left tee hee! :))

All the papers are from The ScrapCake. Gorgeous and just beckoning to be fussy cut!!

The photographs are not mine, I found them on internet while I was browsing. Just adore the white on white and whitewashed and cream. My own alarm clock is far from this fancy, nor are my felt slippers this pristine ...

The word "merry" and the little snowflakes are from the Prima North Country stamp set.

The pine twig and "snow berries" are cut-off from a flower arrangement that I've had for ever. A chandelier vine in burgundy and cut-off piece from a yellow MME peal swirl to mimic Chrissy tree bling.

And that's it! Thanks ever so much for looking at my page!

Have a soupah doupah week folks! xoxoxo Eila

Have you seen my new blinkie? and TCR #88 Joyeux Nöel and some Christmas inspiration

2011-12-09T19:40:00.001+01:00

Another week to tick off in the calendar and we're another week closer to Christmas. If work can get any crazier than it was in November, we certainly are approaching hurricane status at the moment.

Have you seen my new blinkie over there to the right? CSI - Color .. Stories .. Inspiration.

If you're curious to find out some more about this new challenge site that will be launched on 6 January 2012, go have a looksie HERE You might find some familiar names if you check out the list of DT members!

Friday also means release day over at TCR. This week we're in the family room with Shimmerz as sponsor, which means we have wonderful shimmering colours in the palette: Santa Baby, Egg Noggin, Frosty's Got the Blues and Grinchy Green. Don't you just looove those names!

Here's Lydell's fabulous inspo picture:

I totally fell for the Grinchy Green and the Egg Noggin, and of course I had to have some Santa Baby too.

This time I haven't used the multiple layers that I normally do, instead I let the tree be in focus. I fussy cut the pointsettias from last year's K&Co Evergreen papers. The toy parade at the bottom and the little squarelets to the left, are also from the same collection. Got to be my all-time fave Christmas collection! full of old-worldly charm and details.

Show any Swede one of the chocolates in the photo, and they will instantly tell you its name. They come in two layers in the box, and each family has its own rules for whether it's permitted to start picking from the bottom layer while the not-so-popular chocs are still left on the top layer. I say GO FOR IT! ;))

The chippie title is from the French online store Embelliscrap that I have mentioned several times before. I painted it in Shimmerz Frosty's Got the Blues and then I sprinkled generously with Shimmerz Enamelz in Jack Frost and zapped it with my heat gun. F-a-b-u-l-o-u-s glitter IRL!

The Dusty Attic snowflake was covered heavily in Stickles Diamond and then I sprinkled large glitter flakes on top and let it dry. When dry, I glued a Prima button on it and finished with a large diamontée jewel.

And finally, the tree itself. I cut a styrofoam cone in half using a very sharp knife. If your knife is dull, you'll have styrofoam pieces flying just about everywhere!

Then I dressed it in white lace German scrap alternating the layers with punched out strips of green paper from the K&Co Evergreen collection. Instead of tinsel, I wound strips of scalloped German scrap in gold. Stars with bling centres and pearls in white and the creamy golden colour of Egg Noggin.

I have also been making Christmas cards these passed few weekends. This week I'll share some old-fashioned ones with you. At the end of this post I will also give you the recipe for the "glögg" that I mentioned in my previous post.

Papers are from Swedish Pion Design. I made that little book, can be anything from a hymn book to a book of Christmas tales.

You have no doubt already guessed that the "God Jul" is Swedish for Merry Christmas. The "god" is pronounced with a long "o" just as the English word "food". So no religious connotations whatsoever. The "Jul" is pronounced with a long "u" just like in the English name "Julie" but skipping the "ie".

In Finland we say "Hyvää Joulua"!

More from Pion Design. Dusty Attic chippie flourish covered in white acrylic paint, glitter and Stickles. The roses are from KaiserCraft and the small white crocheted doily is from Leean Pearce's Etsy shop now closed for Christmas.

Do you see the white button that I have used as centre in the white rose? it's handmade by wonderfully talented Ivana Camdzic and can be ordered directly from her. Her email address is in my previous post.

Papers from another Swedish designer, Maja Design. A chippie flourish from Dusty Attic and brown Prima alphas. The white stuff around the card is my much loved "snowpaint".

More Maja Design. The roses are from KaiserCraft, the lace at the bottom is German Scrap from Australian online store Meg's Garden, also mentioned in my previous post.

Going back to Swedish Pion Design in this one.

On this one I've used molding paste and a stencil to get the relief effect on a very heavy handmade cream coloured paper.

Aaaaand if you'e made it to the very end, here's the recipe for glögg:

For about 6 servings, you will need 2 dl (200 ml) of unflavoured pure vodka and 1 bottle (75 cl) of red wine. The wine doesn't have to be an expensive one, but it has to be soft and fruity, not spicy. Lots of bramble, raspberry, fudge, vanilla tinges in other words.

On day 1 take a container that has a lid and can be shaken without the liquid coming out. Pour the vodka into the container and add 3 pieces of dried whole ginger snapped in pieces, 2 dried pieces of bitter Seville orange (not the peel from 2 whole oranges!), 4 whole cinnamon sticks, 1 small coffee spoon of whole cardamom seeds and about 12 pcs of dried clove. Shake and set aside. Shake a couple of times a day for 2 days.

On day 3 remove all the spices, you need to squeeze the orange peels to get out the liquid. The liquid should be rather dark golden brown by now. Pour the alcohol liquid which should measure roughly 1,5 dl (150 ml) and the bottle of wine into a saucepan. Add 2 dl (200 ml) castor/granulated sugar and about 2 table spoons of vanilla sugar/powder. Bring to simmer, not boil. Taste to see if it's sweet enough for your taste, some like it rather sweet. Pull aside and let cool before pouring it into a bottle with a cork/cap that can be pulled tight. You will need an additional small bottle as you will have 75 cl + 15 cl of liquid. Let mature for about a week.

Before drinking, gently heat in a saucepan. It is not to be drunk in wine glasses or tea mugs as one serving is normally only about 6-8 cl. Put some raisins and peeled almonds in your cup before pouring the glögg on top. Beware! highly addictive and a splendid remedy for insomnia! Do not drive after you have drunk it as this beverage is 30% pure alcohol.

With the warmth of the glögg, scent of hyacinths, shimmering candle light and a photo of a typical shabby Swedish country window dressed for Christmas that I found on internet, I promise I have come to the very end of this looooong post!

Enjoy the weekend and 3rd of Advent! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #87 Together At Last and TCR #87 New Home card

2011-12-02T08:04:00.000+01:00

So it's finally here, the month of December. With each year, time seems to go into warp 6 and Christmas knocks on the door almost before the replicator has finished making cards, buying gifts and the zillion other things that are on my to-do-list.

I love Christmas and save some extra vacation days only to be able to slot in a day off from work here and there up to Christmas. My friend Barbro says I have to be the only person on earth who writes Christmas letters with a fountain pen and still sends paper Christmas cards rather than electronic ones. Well, that may be so, but doing these things give me the genuine fuzzy and warm Christmas feel in my heart and I can only hope that some of the love sent is felt by the recipients.

Having said that, today is the the first in a line of December Christmas palettes over at TCR. It's a sunny and happy palette of the colours Candlelight, Blue Ribbons, Linen White and Silver Bells. Such wonderful names *sigh* and such gorgeous colours *even more sigh*. Absolutely fabulous work by Lydell putting together this, thank you so very much!

I am such an infinitely slow scrapper, but my page really scrapped itself even though it took a few days before everything had dried. I absolutely adore the colours! This LO is also the second heaviest page that I have ever created, the heaviest is the TCR #82 Christmas Wallhanger.

The title of my LO is "Together At Last". The photo is of my MIL and FIL on their wedding day in 1960. Some of you might recall that they had to wait for 5 years before they could afford to get married. It certainly was a day of great joy when they were finally together as husband and wife. My DH was born less than a year later.

All papers are from the BoBunny Welcome Home collection.

I handstitched in cream on the die cut shaped stripey layer. On the backing paper I used 2 threads each of cream and blue, gives the stitching almost the same effect as bakers twine but so much easier to stitch with. I'll come back to those frosty leaves under the brown Prima jewel swirl a bit later in my post.

I learned how to make the gingham ribbon flower in a tut by the beautiful sweet and awesomely talented queen of shabby chic, Ivana Camdzic.

That gorgeous white button is handmade by Ivana and made on order. She hasn't got an Etsy shop yet but she has told me that if you send her en email, she will send you a convo and pics of the buttons that can be ordered.

Check out Ivana's blog, you'll come to shabby heaven:      Paper Girl Crafts

Here's her email address:                                                  ivc689@mail.usask.ca

Not only that, she is also featured GD for December over at UOAS!

Chunky layers, lace and lots of Prima.

A close up of the happy couple.

Do you see that yummie pearl pin nesting on the frosty leaves? It's a Majesty jewel pin from another totally fabulous online store, Meg's Garden in Australia. Click HERE    for some fantastic browsing!

Meg is the most sweetest and loveliest lady ever, her service is super quick and smooth. I am sure you recognize a couple of talented ladies that are on her DT - Gayle Price and Adriana Bolzon. You can see their gorgeous work if you have a browse of Meg's Garden blog HERE

So back to the frosty velvet leaves which I bought at Meg's Garden. When I bought them they were pale green. I started by taking a generous dollop of white Gesso on my fingers and simply rubbed it into the leaves. Then I repeated the process with my beloved Snow Paint. Before these two coats had dried, I dunked the leaves into glitter and Flower Soft in Polar White. When that had dried, I generously dabbed Stickles in Crystal on them and then sprinkled some more glitter on them.

The DA baroque chippie frame is more or less covered in the flower bonanza, IRL you can see more of it between the blooms. I wanted this flourish at the top to show however. The raw chippie looks like THIS
before it has been worked on.

I covered it several times in DH dabber Snow Cap, but instead of dabbing on the colour I used a brush and really slabbed it on. Then I covered it in TH crackle paint in Picket Fence. When that had dried I used oodles of Stickles Crystal on it. You should see it in candle light IRL - AHHH! that's glitter and shine for you!

Chunky, chunky! I have layered two different chippies from the BB Welcome Home collection on top of a TH ornament plate and then a resin frame. Blue jewels for some bling. Down in the left bottom corner you can also see a key from the BB Welcome Home collection, a cut-off snippet from a Prima Jewel branch, and a cut-off piece from a chandelier vine. The chandelier vine can be found in several places between the flowers.

Bling bling!

While I had the left overs from making my page still on my desk, I made a card for my friend L in the UK. She has just moved into her new home and has told me she's had her kitchen entirely fitted with units from the Swedish mecca of IKEA. Yup, there's one in Manchester too.

This really is a long post, so an extra big thank you to those of you who have actually made it to the end!

Wishing all of you beautiful kind people a truly wonderful weekend! I have a few Christmas gifts to buy, others to wrap in and some more cards to create. Looks like another super busy weekend but ho ho ho - that's how it should be in December!

Mr Chakotay - take her into warp 6! ;)))

xoxoxo Eila

OUAS 15NOV2011 "Life's Journey" and TCR #86 "Ann's Cottage"

2011-11-27T18:37:00.002+01:00

My goodness what a week! am behind with just about everything both at work and in blogland. My apologies to all of you!

Friday I was at a meeting in Gothenburg, which is on the south-west coast of Sweden. The alarm clock rung at 04.30 a.m. and I can tell you - IT'S PITCHBLACK out there at that time!! Had premonitions when I got the Gothenburg airport for my flight back home in the evening; massive queues everywhere ... and sure, I was right. The carrier that was supposed to take us home had been hit by lightning (simply never happens in our parts of the world) and had been taken out of traffic.

I am normally a very kind and accommodating person, but when 120 people charged up to the service desk demanding a seat on the next flight I almost flipped out. Smug 30 something business men in slick suits waved their gold cards and what do you know, they were first in line to get onboard. Do I have to say I had to wait for another 2 flights before finally heading home.

Well enough of that. Today is Sunday and in Scandinavia it also means it's First of Advent. From all windows electric candle sticks and/or electric advent stars spread their soft glow into the darkness. Some families start baking ginger breads and most people also have their first of maaaaany drinks of the traditional GLÖGG. It's similar to mulled wine but about twice or thrice as strong as we put in brandy or vodka or rhum together with cinnamon sticks and lots of other Christmassy spices before we let the brew simmer gently.

Before I tuck into my first saffron bun and first cup of glögg, I'd better share the page I made for OUAS 15 November challenge.

This time the journalling criteria focuses on YOU as a woman OR ANY female in my life. What is the best thing about being a woman? Motherhood? Shopping? Make Up? Girls nights? Gossip? The journalling can be as long as you wish and in any language, but one must journal at least 2 sentences on the best part of being a woman. The journalling critera has to be combined with Nadia's pretty sketch.

I flipped the sketch and had a horizontal line instead of a vertical one. Here it is.

Been admiring and saving the new Basic Grey Piccadilly papers since I got them, how pretty can papers get?! feminine, sweet, bright and happy absolutely gorgeous colours/patterns. With the challenge I wanted to use some really wonderful papers and finally got the courage to cut into the pack. Well, I'm sure you recognize me in the photo. It was taken last summer right after my birthday.

Self-explanatory journalling. Oooh just look at the red and blue in combo!!

Instead of punching and layering across my page, I used a wooden leafy branch from KaiserCraft. Chalked it in green, mixed Gesso with water and washed everything several times for a mat effect. IRL the milky whiteness has dried in really cool soft and subtle patterns. Then I touched up the edges in a darker green + Chestnut Roan.

After my two passed weekends of Christmas card making, I had some left over fabric strips. Cut off some snippets and tied them around the branch as a reminder of all the good things of being a woman. You know, like the old-fashioned way of tieing a string around your finger to make you remember something.

I had some left over squares from a chippie window that I've used in a couple of previous layouts. Covered them in different patterned papers and in a jiffy I had dimensional tiles without having to wait for them to dry.

Nothing but pure Prima sweetness in this cluster. Also in the cluster at the top of the page. Don't know if you can see the itty bitty yellow bloom nesting between the blue roses, it has a dark blue pearl centre. I ordered a bunch of them in assorted colours and matching jo jo fabric bloms on Etsy from one of the most sweetest ladies that I've ever met online: Natalie Jo from PiccalilliPatchwork. She custom made the cutest little pieces of magic for me, I'm still saving the little treasures for something very special.

Check out her shop HERE

Friday was also release day of a new palette over att TCR. We're in His Room this week and playing with these elegant colours; Rusty Red, Light Grey Blue, Pale Beige and Dark Grey Blue.

Here's what I came up with;

The cottage in the photo is the birth place of William Shakespeare's wife Ann Hathaway. I took the photo back in 2006 when hubby and I spent a week in the Cotswolds, UK. Almost surreal to walk around in her house, it's been beautifully kept.

The red backing paper that peeks through the punched pattern of the blue paper, is from Swedish Maja Design's latest collection, Vintage Winter.

The blue paper is from Paper Studio's collection Déja Blu. And the beige paper with the script is from Paper Studio's collection Countryside.

I have written before about the amazing online store in Holland that I found earlier this year. Bea, the shopowner, is a miracle of service and she offers the most astonishing collections of current and older collections that have been discontinued in other places. If you're a K&Co fan as I am, Bea's shop is the place to visit.

Go have a browse in her shop Scrappapier, if you click HERE you will come to the page where you can see ALL the lines that she offers.

More Prima goodies and a Dusty Attic chippie frame that I've left raw.

I am so happy you wanted to come for a visit, thank you ever so much! Have a wonderful week whereever you are, take care!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #85 Bicicletta

2011-11-19T14:49:00.000+01:00

Saturday morning and the roof tops of Stockholm are glistening white with frost in the sunshine. No snow yet, but soon ....

The passed week has been a busy one, attending a conference and planning for the Big Ones in February and April 2012. Lots of stuff happening at work with downsizing carried out in our organization but still full throttle ahead - business ain't waiting.

Yesterday saw the release of a new fruity and vibrant palette over at TCR, we're in Her Room this week.

Woohoo for Raspberry, White, Fuchsia and Sunflower!

Here's my take on the palette:

The checkered yellow/white paper is the reverse of a paper from Authentique. For the first time ever I have played with Gesso on a bigger scale than just dabbing a bit here and there. At first it looked really something that I wanted to chuck into the bin, but after having dried over night it had assumed a rather cool texture.

The title "Andiamo in Bicicletta" means let's go for a bicycle ride.

The stamps are from 7Gypsies Venice. I misted one of the tags in TA Sunflower. A snippet of Tim Holtz tissue tape, some hessian, and a Prima toggle. Splatter in fuchsia TA Glimmer Glam, think the colour is called Pink Tutu.

The black bling is cut off from a Prima Printery Line lace/jewel swirl.

Here you see what the Gesso looks like with the chalk in fuchsia and raspberry and squirts of the TA glimmermist in Sunflower. Think I have to experiment some more!

Really love this cute little bicycle from KaiserCraft. Jazzed it up a little bit with a dainty yellow satin ribbon and a couple of Webster's Pages Rose&Pearl sparklers.

Tore off the border of a couple of mini doilies and scrunched them up before tucking them into the flower cluster, which is made of cut-off flowers from a couple of old Prima Debutantes and some other odd small Prima blooms.

Isn't the electric blue bike just so cool! I understand why it had to be photographed, just too good an opportunity to be missed.

The double matting is with papers from Authentique and the reverse side of a paper from Crate Paper. The big sunflower was fussy cut from a paper from K&Co. The filmstrip is an overlay from KaiserCraft and the chipboard is Dusty Attic of course.

I have been busy making Christmas cards and layouts that I cannot share with you just yet.

A piece of big bang news is going to be released shortly, I am super excited about it but have to wait for a bit before it can be shared. Something really lovely is also happening in March.

Life really is so good and I am infinitely grateful to so many lovely and caring people out there. Thank you warmly for all the incredibly kind comments you leave me and all the wonderful love that you leave! I am truly so blessed!

Have a wonderful weekend all of you! More Christmas cards waiting to be scrapped!

oxoxox Eila

TCR #84 Cookies for Santa

2011-11-10T23:04:00.000+01:00

My goodness ladies, I am overwhelmed by the fantastic beautiful comment that you have left on my previous post! thank you so very much!

Yesterday evening I met a bunch of fellow PAs over some bubblies and canapés. We were invited by the newest and poshest hotel in Stockholm for a viewing of their facilities. The hotel is the very same building in which the Norrmalmstorg robbery of Kreditbanken took place in 1973. The bank employees were held hostage in the bank vault and became emotionally attached to their captors just like Patty Hearst did to her kidnappers. The bank robbery is what coined the syndrome called The Stockholm Syndrome.

The hole that the police drilled through the ceiling of the vault is still there as a reminder, although it's now embedded into the tiled floor of the shower room of the hotel gym.

Well, from canapés and bank robbery to Cookies for Santa. That's the title of my layout for the TCR #84 palette released today.

This week we are in the family room with a whitewashed palette. The colours are Woodgrain, Hazelnut, Burlap and White. To me they shouted ginger breads!

As I don't have kids of my own or any pics of baking with my stepdaughter Em, I found this photo of the two little girls baking ginger breads from a home journal from 1939. Can you see how concentrated the bigger girl is at rolling her dough?

Rather unusal for me, but I have used only two layers of paper for my layout. Both are BoBunny Etc. The top one I stamped with snowflakes using chalk in Pine Cone and some splatter in TA Walnut Gold and Suede. Some small roses, pearls and acrylic stars sprinkled here and there.

Do you see that yummilicious DA Christmas flourish under the cluster? I painted it in white acrylic paint, let it dry. Then rubbed it entirely in Stickles Star Dust and immediately generously sprinkled glitter on it before it dried. Then dipped the ends in Flower Soft Diamond White. The texture is really neat IRL if I may say so.

I cut out a heart in brown felt, blanket stitched in white around it and then I layered hessian and different strips of lace on it. Finished with a white button, the twine is actually a pulled-out strand from the hessian. A bow from a strip of muslin and a rose from my stash.

The 2 and 5 are from my stash. I plopped some "snowpaint" and a dollop of Stickles Diamond Ice here and there. A mini clothes pin that I painted randomly in white acrylic paint before misting in TA Sand.

My new fave Martha Stewart punch to give a bit of old worldly feel to the pics that I have dry stippled with Gesso. Some aniseeds for additional feel.

Here you can see the double punching more closely and the cluster. The sleigh was originally in a sort of pale pine colour. I painted it in TH crackle paint in White Fence and misted it in TA Sand, just like the mini clothes peg. Then I sprinkled it in Flower Soft Diamond White to mimic snow.

I covered the other felt heart in buttons for no other reason than it looked pretty.

I like using dried spices associated with Christmas on my Christmas cards, especially cinnamon.

I made the rolled fabric flower and sprinkled it in pearls and bling.

There it is, my Cookies for Santa. Thank you for taking the time to have a peek!

Wish you all a beautiful scrappy weekend! I'll be making Christmas cards.

xoxox Eila

OUAS 15 October in the top 5 featured and my OUAS 1 November page

2011-11-07T21:56:00.000+01:00

It's Tuesday and the week is almost halfway through even before I got used to it being Monday.

I was ever so happy to see that my LO for the UOAS 15 October challenge was voted among the top 5 featured after the 3 (yes 3!!) winners; Shona Keen, Wendy Kwok and Marilyn Rivera. Thank you DT!! *toot toot* to all the winners!

Time for a new challenge and this time the journalling criteria is to journal at least 2 sentences on when you started scrapping and why.

The journalling criteria must be combined with this pretty sketch.

I remember it really well when I bought a really glitzy ladies' magazine in November 2009 and saw a feature on Scandinavian white-on-white Christmas. On one of the pages was the most dreamy Christmas cards in what I later learned, was called shabby chic.

There and then I decided to make my own Christmas cards in that same gorgeous style. Off I went and bought what I thought would make stunning cards. Well, all of it ended up in the bin and I sent store-bought cards to friends and family that year. However, I was totally hooked on the paper and scissor thing even after the card incident.

As I don't have a photo of that magazine, I thought I would make a shabby chic card and place it where the photo would have been.

All the papers are from the Swedish Maja Design's Christmas line that has just landed in the stores. I LOVE the combo of blue and brown!

I doused the whole card very generously in Tattered Angels glimmermist in Dazzling Diamond and then I gently rubbed some Stickles Star Dust over the whole surface too. It shimmers and shines sooooo gorgeously IRL!

Lace is from Webster's Pages and the totally scrummylicious stick pin is from Australian online store Meg's Garden. Check out Meg's treasure trove of many wonders CLICK HERE to come to Meg's shop!

My new fave Martha Stewart punch for the horizontal blue strip and some white German scrap.

I threaded white and silver pearls alternating with acrylic stars. The yummie blue glittery chippie snowflake is from Dusty Attic. I used Tim Holtz crackle paint in Faded Jeans on it, then dabbed lightly and randomly with white acrylic paint and finished with a generous dollop of Stickles Diamond Ice that I smeared out with a finger. The brown/amber bling is cut off from a strip of jewels that I bought at a local store. Brown and white alphas from Prima.

Here you can see the structure of the creamy rough top layer with its coating of glimmer and shine. More German scrap and a cut-off edge from a square doily on the left. Another smaller snowflake that had the same treatment as the big one.

A Dusty Attic flourish that I left untreated. The roses are from KaiserCraft. A cut off piece from a Prima pearl swirl and a couple of acrylic chandelier drops bought at a local craft store.

A white chiffon double bow with a cream button. I touched up the edges of the bow in Distress Stickles Old Paper and very lightly touched up the roses and the ribbon with Gesso.

And there's the yummie snowflake again!

Thanks for popping by! have a lovely rest of the week. cheers!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #83 Dimples + visit by a dear scrappy friend + a parcel with attitude

2011-11-04T15:00:00.000+01:00

Hello friends near and far!

First of all I want to thank all of you for leaving such beautiful comment on my previous post and the Christmas Wallhanger. It truly brightened my day!

The weather is unusually mild and fine for the time of the year, so even though it has been rather cloudy these passed few days, the temperature has been hovering between wopping +13C and +10C all week.

It has been the autumn school holiday this week. On Wednesday a dear scrappy friend from the south of Sweden, Bente Fagerberg, came for a visit to Stockholm together with her youngest daughter, Bea. I had a day off from work and spent the most wonderful day together with the girls.

Just want to share a few highlights with you. We went to the Hallwylska Palace, a magnificent 19th century city palazzo. Have a looksie at the photos and you'll get the picture I'm trying to paint for you:

Click HERE

Not sure if there is a translation button anywhere, if not - just enjoy the richness of the photos!

As it happened, there was a special tour just starting when we got there. The guide was dressed in period clothes and acted the role of the governess of the household. A crowd of excited kids and their parents in tow. Bea quickly joined in and left Bente and I to roam the house on our own. Spectacular house! Bea sent us texts saying things like" ooooh this is really so scary" and "heeeelp this is deliciously yukkie". Turned out the tour had a Halloween theme (it figures when I think about it) and they had experienced oodles of scary but yummie things to their utter delight. Bea said it was THE bestest she had experienced.

Next we hopped on the bus and took ourselves to the Royal Palace in Stockholm's Old Town. To the joy of us, there was another guided tour starting only 10 minutes later. This one also had a guide dressed in period costume though now in the style of the royal court in the 1700's including a wig.

Check out the photo of the man to the right HERE

and imagine that everything that is blue was actually bright red. Also this guided tour was superb although no Halloween in sight.

Friday means the release of a new palette over at TCR. This week we are in the Sun Room, the colours have deliciously fruity names such as Pretty Pink, Total Tangerine, Pale Grey and Sky Blue. I'm sure we are going to see many lovely feminine pages this week in the gallery.

Very often I end up with something totally different than I had planned. This was once again the case with my page that I wanted to make with the pink and orange as mains. Just go with the flow, as my DH always tells me.

The young lady in the photo is my step daughter Emelie, it was taken about 4 years ago when she was 18. She went to a studio and had a full make-over. The photos from the shoot are absolutely adorable! She is still a most lovely young woman today at 22.

I used a brown Bazzil cardstock as base. Then the originally cream/brown spotted paper which I misted and chalked in pink. On top of that a creamy paper with a subtle swirly pattern from MME that I punched with a lacey punch from EK Success and handstitched in dark brown. Randomly cut up the stitching and sandpapered it for a worn look.

Tore off random pieces of the punched border and chalked in Tim Holtz Old Paper + Chestnut Roand and then finally randomly with Tim Holtz Black Soot. Used a finger dabber which I find gives me better control of where the ink ends up and how much I dab on.

A Prima pearl swirl and pale blue roses from my stash. The die cut label is cut from an MME Lost & Found 2 paper, the dimensional sticker is also from the same collection. A crocheted doily from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy.

I piled up buttons and used that same really strong stone glue that I used to stick down the pearls with on my X-mas wallhanger. It's of a local brand so I don't know what the equivalent product would be elsewhere.

I used the same MME L&F 2 collection for the matting and the pennants. Just look at the tiiiiiny thread spool upon which I rolled a strip of music sheet. Absolutely the cutest ever! Thank you darling Lean de Ruiter for sending it to me!

I've been buying mists over the passed year, love my colourful collection of yumminess. If I may say so myself, I absolutely adore this little dress form with its dress of misted muslin strips and pearl bustier. I got the inspiration from Tattered Angels' blog.

I used several hues of pale and icy blue mists on a piece of muslin and then cut it in strips that I layered randomly around the chippie dress form. Here it looks rather the same hue of blue but IRL the effect is quite lovely. Thank you darling wonderful Lean Pearce for sending me the dress form, mwah!! I then drenched the whole thing in TA Dazzling Diamond. You might see the shimmer on the dress form if you click on the photo and look at it on Flickr where you can see a larger copy.

The orange fussy cut flowers that I tucked in behind the matting, are from BG Curio. The pink banner with birdies is fussy cut from the same MME L&F 2 collection that I have used throughout my page.

Getting parcels really makes me ridiculously happy, I know that I have ordered the items and I know that I paid for them but still I get seriously giddy. Today I got one unexpectedly delivered to my door, they normally have to be fetched from the post office. This one was so beautifully done up that I had to photograph it and show you. Do I want to come back and buy more stuff from this shop? DEFINITELY! Check out their awesome range of Dusty Attic chippies!

This is where it came from, CLICK HERE

How sweet is that, just look that personalized tag with my name on!! *swooon*

On this happy note, I have also come to the end of this post. Thanks my dearies for having followed my ramblings this far! Have a wonderful weekend and scrappy week!

Cheerio! xoxoxo Eila

TCR # 82 X-mas Wallhanger + blog hop at Colorful Krafter, US

2011-10-28T15:36:00.002+02:00

It's Halloween in some parts of the world, in other parts like ours, it's just a regular weekend though quite a few shops are making their best to whip up some spooky feeling.

My colourful scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, US is having a Halloween bloghop for the next 4 days. I'm sponsoring 3 full sets of Prima Alla + Prima Ledger 1 and Prima Ledger 2 papers for those who visit my blog and leave a comment on any of my posts. Then go back to Rebekah's blog and say you have been here.

Check out Rebekah's cool gargantuan crèpe paper spider HERE

Your next Halloween Blog Hop Stop is

Shelley ~ Scrappergirl

Mindy ~ prettylittlepaperlove

Friday also means it's release time for a new palette over at The Color Room. This week we're in Her Room with the beautiful colours Purple Passion, Sequin white with a hint of blue, Party Pink and Silver Bells.

This palette is another one of TCR's featured in the Swedish Magazine Inzpira Magazine (www.inzpira.se) which was released this week. It is a gorgeous Magazine and contains some serious eyecandy along with recipes and oodles of other yummy stuff!!!!!

These colours are really opposites of the traditional Scandinavian Christmas colours of red, green, gold, white and brown, but oh so pretty and so wonderful to work with.

This is what I came up with; a Christmas wallhanger that will be framed and hung in our living room in December.

All the papers are from Danish Tilda and a mix from a couple of different earlier collections. I never stop wondering how on earth the same page can have so many different hues depending on which angle I've photographed it or how close I've snapped the pic. I promise, it is the one and same page.

Here I've used a resin decoration from Melissa Frances as my main central embellie. Under it I have two white feathers and a silver grey chiffon ribbon. Pink and purple pearls piled on top of each other (takes a really good and strong stone glue to fix that without all the pearls falling apart). Kaiser Craft doilies tucked in around and under the wreath.

Here you can also see the Pink Paislee Artisan music sheet paper that I misted in Vintage Pink and chalked the edges in Rosebud. On top of it is a doily paper in pale grey from DCWV. I cut off the central really pretty lacey bit and saved it for later.

The chippie wreath is from French online store Embelliscrap WHICH YOU CAN FIND HERE.
It is made on special order and comes in a creamy colour that can be altered as you like.

I put in quite a lot of paint work on the wreath; first I whitewashed it in diluted white acrylic paint. Then I dabbed it randomly with an ice blue dabber from my stash. Let it dry and then I painted it in Shimmerz Blingz in Winter Garden before white-washing again in diluted white acrylic paint. Let it air dry.

As finishing touches I smeared out Stickles Star Dust over all surfaces and then traced some lines on random leaves in Stickles Crystal. After that had dried, I smeared on my beloved "snow paint" on the tips of random leaves and when that had dried, I glued on Flower Soft in Polar White.

Lastly I glued on white semi-pearls and Stickles Silver before adhering the Pink and Purple pearls when the Stickles had dried.

The silver alphas are American Crafts.

I used a circle punch but only half way in to punch out the inverted "scalloped" border. Then I matted the 5th paper layer in silver grey Bazzil cardstock before tracing the scallops with a scissor.

I used a glue pen to touch up the pearls before pouring glitter on them, some of the glitz stayed on the chiffon ribbon and sparkles really prettily IRL.

And with all this sparkle and shine still fresh in your memory, we've come to the end of this post.

Thanks for your visit and for leaving lovely comment! Happy Halloween to ya all! Have a wonderful scrappy weekend!

xoxoxox Eila

Once Upon A Sketch 15 October Challenge - "Ooops - watch out!"

2011-10-24T17:11:00.000+02:00

Hello again!

Had a wonderful scrappy weekend and for the first time in ages, I could also play along at Once Upon A Sketch.

Here's Nadia's pretty sketch. I've turned it sideways to fit in my photo, moved the embellishment spots too, but the large central area is still there.

Journalling criteria: A most embarrassing/awkward/uncomfortable moment or characteristic/feature/habit/mannerism/quality or quirk you or someone around you possesses. Journal at least 2 SENTENCES on a moment that you will remember for all the wrong reasons.

The journalling criteria has to be combined with the sketch.

Hmmm ... as I am very controlled person, I very rarely get embarrassed about anything. Nor do I end up in awkward moments. However, there was once that I went to the ladies' room in the office and when coming out, my very sweet co-worker U immediately pulled me aside and whispered that my skirt had accidentally got caught up into the back of my pantyhoses. Voilà! there they were, my granny knickers to behold for anyone coming up behind me. Gosh, that's one of those moments but I really didn't want to scrap my knickers tee hee ...

However, clicking through my photos I found this one. Earlier this summer I wrote about how DH and I had been to a fabulous exhibition on exquisite designer dresses and costumes. Well, the museum has a garden with an outdoor café cum summer restaurant. It was a lovely lovely day so hubbs and I decided to have ourselves a shrimp salad and a cold drink.

Now doesn't this look idyllic? All the papers are from the latest collection by Danish Tilda.

Check out that life size model of an owl that sits on the roof behind DH. It's there for a reason!

Took myself a couple of the classes over at Miss Art's Papercrafting school during the weekend, one of them is "Fabric Frills" featuring Andrea Budjack. Gerry van Gent has a class on "Clay Creations" and there are many more illustrous ladies teaching fabulous stuff!

I really do recommend a visit to http://missartspapercrafting.com/classes

For the first time ever, I made that rolled-up fabric flower. Looks more like a lopsided dotted teal bun but hey, practice will make perfect one day!

The cute brown and white felt blooms are from Precocious Paper's Etsy shop that you can find HERE

Cut one of the labels in half and placed one above the pic and the other one under it. The rose is a die-cut.

I made the accordion bloom from one of the Tilda papers. Attached a white doily from Leean Pearce's Chip Chop Shop and on top of that, another die-cut from the Tilda collection and a fuchsia coloured pearl just like a cherry on a cake. The ribbons both under the accordion bloom, and under my fabric bloom, are from the Tilda collection.

And now to the punchline of my eeky moment:

The darned birds had of course figured out a long time ago that the café was a splendid place to get a free meal, took a loop above DH and I. Just as I was about to tuck into my salad, a very unwelcome greeting ended up on my plate and that was it. Brrrr! Will make sure to sit under a parasol next time we decide to enjoy an outdoor lunch!

The chippie birds are Dusty Attic. I cut off about 1/3 of the row of birds and inked them in Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Black Soot. The "branch" is a stripped Prima Summer Carnation Vine and splattered it with white acrylic paint. Well you get the picture I'm sure ;)

I loved having you for a visit, thank you very much! Take care and have a great week!

Cheers! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #81 A Lovely Day

2011-10-21T07:41:00.000+02:00

Good morning lovely ladies!

Once again it's Friday and the weekend is waiting around the corner. What a fantastic week it has been, I've been riding on a wave of energy the whole week. Work is good, life is good, I'm good too!

Friday means release time over at TCR and this week we're in His Room. Here's the gorgeous palette of Basic Grey, Bright White, Olive Green and Steel Blue. I just looove the Missoni-inspired pillows piled up in the sofa! and that's what inspired me to use the blue and green as mains in my page.

DH and I spent an extended weekend in Nice, Côte d'Azur by the Mediterranean in France some years ago. Very nearby is located Cap Ferrat where the jet setters scoot around on their humungus yachts. This was the place to be seen in even 100 years ago when the Rotschild family built a divine pink summer villa, a mirage perched high up on the cliff with views over the sea. The villa gardens are a miniature copy of the ones of the Versailles palace, utterly lush and dreamy.

This pic was taken in the villa gardens. I thought the marble statue and the huuuge white "angel trumpets" growing around it give such a fantastic and a little mysterious feel of a Secret Garden.

So lots of fussy cutting and misting on this one!

I have used 3 backing papers; first layer is white Bazzil cardstock that I misted a frame on. Used TA glimmermist in Olive Vine and Sweet Clover.

The second layer is a steel blue paper from Swedish designer Pion Design.

The third and top paper is BoBunny Welcome Home. At the Ingvild Bolme workshop that I've mentioned in an earlier post, she taught us to fold the paper about 1,5 cm into it, i.e. folding downwards towards the table thus leaving a sharp edge that could be lightly touched up with chalk. I used Chestnut Roan. When folding back the paper one gets this effect of a subtle frame. I also misted and splattered the page in TA Glimmermist Olive Vine + Sweet Clover + Fall Breeze and Glacier.

I also used chippie corner flourishes from Imaginarium Design that I misted in the green and blue hues that I've used throughout my layout. Finished by dotting on some silver and brown liquid chalk.

The brown punched paper is from KaiserCraft Hunt&Gather. The olive green matting is Anna Griffin Francesca as is the patterned blue/olive one that peeks out under the chippie frame. You can see it a bit better further down in the pic with the fountain. The flourished chippie frame is the same that I used in one of my previous pages for Les Papiers de Pandore, the autumnal one with the stacked photos of the cress flowers.

This time I primed the frame in white acrylic paint and then misted it in TA glimmermist Glacier and Fall Breeze + Olive Vine and Sweet Clover. The white stuff that goes around the photo under the frame, is my beloved "snow paint".

The two little birdies perched up at the top come in the same pack as the Prima resin fountain. The crest at the top centre is a BoBunny trinket that I Gessoed a bit and then placed a glittery silver alpha R on top of it (R for Rotschild of course).

The resin pillar is one of Prima's latest releases. I took a Prima summer carnation vine and pulled off the flowers and then wound a couple of the tendrils around the pillar. Then coloured it lightly with TA glimmermist in Suede, used a very fine-tipped brush. The rose is from my stash, very lightly brushed some Gesso on it with my finger tip.

Everything was pop-dotted heavily to add dimension as you will see a bit further down.

Silver skeleton leaves, a grey stick pin, some leaves from the Prima vine that I had stripped. I dismantled a white large gardenia, leaving only the centre bit. Added a resin bloom from Webster's Pages to it and popped a brown jewel at the top.

Here you have a better view of the blue/olive Anna Griffin paper that I mentioned earlier. Resin fountain from Prima and Gessoed Prima roses. Some more of the Prima summer carnation vines.

This is a rather heavy page IRL, lots of stuff on it you know! Don't know if you can see that I have printed out 3 copies of the photo, silhoutted the statue and pop-dotted it to make it stand out from the bottom photo.

The stickers are all Webster's Pages, superduper alphas that work beautifully on any layout in my opinion. The centre white/blue flourish is a PinkPaislee Artisan Element that I have stickled with TH distress stickles in Faded Jeans. Looks a bit bright when photographed, but IRL it has a muted steely blue hue. Another round tiny Artisan Element and an olive green Rose and Pearl Sparkler from Webster's Pages on top of it. Under the punched brown matting, I have used steel blue lace and under that is an olive green fussy cut semi circle from an unknown scrap of paper. Liquid pearls running around the circle.

And finally the fussy cut sweet blue blooms which are from Prima Pixie Glen and not blue at all to begin with. I used a very fine-tipped brush and painted them several times in TA glimmermist Fall Breeze and Glacier. They were pink and beige before I painted them. Liquid pearls on each little bloom, both here at the bottom but also at the top of the page. The leaves were hand-painted in TA glimmermist Olive Vine.

With this I thank you warmly for popping by, so lovely having you for a visit! Have a wonderful weekend peeps, take care!

Cheerio! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #80 Adorable and Sweet + a layout just for me

2011-10-16T15:27:00.000+02:00

What a glorious weekend it has been! For the first time in weeks, I had a day off from work on Friday. Cannot say what I did, time just went by in a blissful haze of nothingness. Oh, I do remember one thing: I bought myself a really nice black DKNY bag. Have had a really tattered old thing that I've loved for years, and it has served me faithfully, but there is a point when that doesn't help. Thank you AmEx and because I am worth it!

I spent the whole of Saturday creating my layout for TCR #81. Felt so good to finally have all the time in the world and a little bit more. Have to say I was rather chuffed at the result. I'll share it with you next Friday.

Now back to this Friday's TCR release which was #80. Here's the inspo photo with vibrant colours such as Magenta Pink, Absolutey Apricot, Warm Beige and Pool Blue. All colours, except beige are my toughest challenges in a palette.

I made this page right after I got back from Zürich and had so little time to do it in. Admittedly far from one of my better ones, but have a look at the gorgeous apricot peachy silk lollipop blooms in the middle of the cluster!! They were in the surprise package that I got from sweet darling Lean de Ruiter the week before I left for my trip. Aren't they just so luscious! Thank you Lean, and Chippie of course who was moral support for mummy while she was creating them.

The peachy paper under the black one, is the reverse side of an old WP paper. The black one could have been black cardstock, but as I had none, I took what I could find and that was the reverse of a paper from MME Meadow Lark. The creamy one is Crate Paper.

Here they are, the beautiful apricot silk lollipops! The pretty girl is the daughter of some friends. You've seen her previously in my TCR #67 You.

And now to the little something that I made just for me. Say hello to Buster the doggie, checking out his neighbours! It's the same little chap as in my TCR # 55A A Dog's Life and in one of the pages I made for Les Papiers de Pandore, "Going Home".

First I started with the DA chippie frame because I knew it would take some time to dry. Primed it in white acrylic paint, then misted in TA Olive Vine + Sweet Clover. Then followed a couple of purple hues before I spread TH crackle paint in Picket Fence in a thick layer on it.

Then to the background. I started with a white cardstock that I sprayed semi lightly with water, and then followed a misting bonanza with TA Suede + Juneberry Wine (gosh I do love that colour) + Spring Violet + Pashmin + Lavender Fields, as well as the same greens that I had used on the frame. Even if I zapped the paper with my heat gun, it took considerable time before the paper had dried and then it was anything but flat. Anybody got a tip on how to avoid the paper warping and wobbling?!

The patterned papers used are K & Co Flora & Fauna and the black alphas are my current faves from Prima.

The brownish/greenish "grass" is tulle that I have misted. I borowed the idea from wonderful and supertalented Helen Tilbury who shared the tip on her blog some time ago, she had used a predominant green for her grass. I have also punched out a couple of strips of the same hue from some Flora & Fauna papers that I layered up behind the tulle.

Some Prima and KaiserCraft roses, and a couple of ephemera pieces from K&Co Flora & Fauna.

Fussy cut details and elements from the same Flora & Fauna collection and a piece of cream lace from my stash tucked in.

My hands look as if I've got some weird disease, all splotched in purple and brown. Really so great to see how the mists are beginning to end up where I want them to be and to look the way I had in mind.

My colourful scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, US is hosting a blog hop over Halloween (starting 27 October). I am one of the sponsors for Bekah's hop. Check out her blog which you find HERE

This girl works magic with her sewing machine and she has an Etsy Shop where she sells gorgeous stuff, have a peek HERE

It's still a beautiful autumn day in Stockholm, about +8C and sunshine. Just had a text message from DH who is on his way home from his weekend with the boys. Pizza for dinner has a rather tempting ring to it ...

Thanks for your visit and lovely comment! Take care, be good - toodeloo!

xoxxo Eila

With love from Switzerland + TCR #79 Like Apples on the Trees and greetings from Holland

2011-10-10T22:14:00.001+02:00

Gruessi ali lueti! as the good citizens of Zürich would say. To ye English speaking I bid hello!

From icy winds and rain in the capital of Switzerland to dito in my hometown, no question about it - woollies are here to stay!

I was cooped up in a conference room for 3 days and by the time we were let out, it was almost dinner time. I was a naughty girl and skipped the last two workshops on day 2 just to get some fresh air. Took the tram down to the Old Town which is located at lake Zürich. With the excruciatingly strong exchange rate of the Swiss Franc, shopping was out of the question.

Just like a postcard even with dark skies and icy winds. Lake Zürich in the background.

A residential street in the Old Town.

And with a photo of the opposite side of the river Limat I say bye to Zürich and head over to The Color Room where palette #79 was released last Friday.

This week we have Purple Passion, Tan Hide, Pale Grey and Dusty Blue to challenge us and here is the inspo picture. Loved the combo but the Purple Passion turned out to be a really tricky colour for me.

Loved the blue paper from KaiserCraft Hunt&Gather, which then decided the layout for me. The original backing paper is the same brown paper, also KaiserCraft H&G, that you can see as matting under the photo. However, as I have serious problems photographing square despite all the tips I have got, I had to crop the photo thus leaving hardly any of it to be seen. The grey paper is from Swedish Pion Design.

Some of you might recognize Miss T whom I've scrapped several times before. Her mother told me that the photo was taken last summer (2011) at the Swedish Royal family's summer residence Solliden which is on the island of Öland. A right royal tree in other words!

Have bought a couple of new masks from Crafter's Workshop, this one with the branch and birdies is one of them and immediately became my new fave. I used a finger sponge to stipple TH distress ink first in Antique Linen and then in Vintage Photo. I think it gives the image a soft and hazy feel.

The large alphas are BoBunny Etc and I have misted and chalked them in several hues of purple and brown.

I just love the dappled light in the pic. Gosh how that girl has grown in the passed year!

Some brown/grey/tan flowers from Prima's new collections. A blue heart from Webster's Pages. A Prima pearl swirl from my stash and some cut out flowers from a piece of scrap of really old unknown paper. The photo is double matted in brown paper from KaiserCraft Hung&Gather and the grey/white is from Anna Griffin Georgette Collection. I made a fan from that same grey/white paper and placed it in the cluster.

Here's some more of the beautiful mask and the top cluster with Prima blooms and resin bird. The blue rose and pearl Sparkler is from Webster's Pages.

Talking about sparkling, the postman brought me a wonderful surprise last week from the lovely bubbly and gorgeously beautiful Lean de Ruiter in Holland. I will soon share some of the content of this package with you. Her sweet and clever doggie Chippie had also sent a little something to her admirer in Stockholm; a card with a view of her beloved beach! Thank you so much girls!

And with a view of the endless sky and sea I have also come to the end of this post. Have the next weekend to look forward to, hubbs is going away on an all-boys weekend with his chums so I have the computer all to myself! Cannot wait to catch up on my long overdue blog visits.

Till then, thank you dearly to those of you who haven't given up hope on me and have left lovely lovely comment even if I haven't been able to visit your blogs for quite some time! Reading them gave me energy to go with a smile to work - thank you!!

Have a fantastic week! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #78 A Lifetime of Duty and GDT at Scrap-it-Lah

2011-10-01T14:25:00.000+02:00

Crazy crazy week and another one waiting around the corner! Took a day off from work yesterday, Friday and did absolutely nothing. Sat in the sunshine at a café sipping my latte and checking out people scurrying about.

This week's conference went super well, got another one coming up on Tuesday and then bye bye, I'm off to Zürich (Switzerland) on Wed + Thur + Fri. I'm a boardmember of something called EUMA (European Management Assistants) and it's time for our AGM. Some wild 350 chicks of varying ages meeting up to discuss this and that about our profession, 'cause that's what I do for a living; I'm a PA. I have a special place in my heart for the ladies from the UK, been to their training days and have met them on several occasions in London.

Anyhow, it is the time of the week when TCR releases the new palette. This week we are in the sun room with gorgeous soft colours; Pink Putty, Candy Pink, Celery Green and Deep Cornflower Blue. Totally yummie! Here's the inspirational pic for you:

When I first saw the palette I was dead sure I would end up with a layout with pink as main but that's the beauty of the creative process, anything can happen along the road. I never have a clear picture in my head of the end result, ever so often it's nothing like what I started with and this one's exactly that.

It was the blue and green patterned paper from Anna Griffin's Francesca collection that chose me. I just love this photo of my DH's paternal grandfather, who was called Melker by the way. He looks so important and rather pompous, very proud of his position as head accountant at a rather posh Swedish estate in the 1930's and 1940's. This pic was taken in the early 1930's. The pattern of the paper reminds me of silk ties from that era, lovely lovely soft and muted colours.

The floral and paisley papers are also from the Franscesca collection. The brad with a typewriter is MME L&F 2 - my absolute fave collection at the moment! Brown alphas are Prima, the crocheted flower is from a local store. The ledger paper/bill is from Australian online store Maxine's Melange.

Don't know if you can see it but there is a chalked imprint of a doily in the bottom right-hand corner, ever so subtle. Resin frame from a local store and stamped clock face mounted in it. Keys are from Tim Holtz and symbolize the keys to the safe and grand dads drawers in his office. The white buttons of course stand for his impeccably starched white shirts.

Black old-fashioned handwriting is on an overlay from Maxine's Melange and the rub-on next to it is from BoBunny Etc. Lock and key are TH and the resin crown is from a local store. Coffee dyed scrunched up tag.

The fussy cut bloom is also from a Franscesca paper. Cannot remember where the ephemera book cover is from, perhaps K&CO Flora&Fauna?

And here's Mr Melker himself. Gosh I can see his features in my own hubby, jolly nice my own man hasn't inherited any of his grand dad's primness even though it was handed down to his own son, my DH's dad.

I am also really excited to share some news with you: I was asked to be the October GDT over at Malaysia's first non-profit challenge blog, Scrap-it-Lah, where gorgeous, kind and talented Helen Tilbury is DT. Fantastic and arty Amelia Khalik, beautiful ladies Azura Alyssa, Fon Mee, Helene Sierman, Nadia Jalil and Yatie Tajudin are the other DT members.

Have a peek HERE

The October challenge is to include old book paper, sheet music or something similar downloaded off the internet & printed out + fussy cutting + hand-stitching using embroidery floss.

Well, I often have hand stitching and definitely have fussy cutting on almost all of my pages. I used printed out sheet music from internet to make the leaves as well as for layering in the cluster under the pic.

This is my DH as a baby and his mother, the pic was taken in the autumn of 1961. The chippie flourish has only been painted in white acrylic paint and then touched up with chalk in Chestnut Roan before I added some white pearls and liquid pearls in teal.

Love that white overlay from Hambly! The yellow ochra paper that I've used for the punched and pleated border is MME L&F 2 as is the checkered paper under the photo. The brown second layer is from K&Co Flora & Fauna. The reddish-brownish flower "stamens" are Viva Decor liquid pearl in bronze and copper.

I used brown alphas from Prima on the twill ribbon, the dark teal brads are from MME L&F 2. Teal stitching with embroidery yarn around the whole page. Some TA splatter and scattered teal bling.

All the fussy cut flowers and green leaves are from K&Co Julianna. The teal roses are Prima.

Teal pearl swirl from MME L&F 2.

And here's the proud mother and her bubba boy.

Better get going with my Saturday chores. Have a lovely lovely weekend!

xoxoxox Eila

Les Papiers de Pandore - Autumn Glory

2011-09-26T21:14:00.000+02:00

Hello week!

Hubbs and I thought we had been invited for coffee at a friend's place on Saturday afternoon and were looking forward to some rich scrummie cake. Our friends have just moved into a fabulous apartment on the 8th floor with views over Stockholm and had asked some friends to come over. As it turned out, the coffee was a bucket of Cosmopolitan and the cake had been swapped for cocktail canapées. Ooops! not exactly in the habit of knocking back cocktails at 3 o'clock but when in Rome ... Ha ha I'm sure you can guess the rest!

Last Friday didn't only see the release of new palettes over at TCR and CCG, Julie Blanc also posted one of my pages on her blog Les Papiers de Pandore. Here's a quick post to share that page with you.

The papers are of course LPdP. I cut out the leaves from one of the pps from the autumn 2010 collection and doused them heavily in TA Glimmer Glaze in Pink Tutu. It made the leaves curl up and gave them a fantastic shine, the heavy coating also pooled at the edges which gives a beautiful effect IRL.

Faux stitching to give an effect of the leaves twirling in the wind. I also double stitched the border in fuchsia and silver grey.

I printed out the photo in several copies and fussy-cut the leaves and the cress flower, which I then stacked in different layers with popdots to give a 3D effect.

The chippie window I first painted in white acrylic paint and then "dirtied" it with different shades of brown before dabbing randomly in Adirondack Snow Cap. Repeated the whole thing several times till I was happy with the result. This is something I learned in a tutorial by "Willea" over at Dusty Attic.

The bricks were made with my belowed "snowpaint" which is like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand, and a stencil.

Alphas are BG Hello Luscious, as are the fussy cut leaves in the cluster of Prima blooms. Some TA splatter in purple and lilac hues finished the page.

I have another intensively busy week at work, a big conferens is coming up and we are in the final stages of putting the details in place. Wish you all a great week! Ciao!

xoxoxo Eila

TCR #77 Not A Penny Wedding

2011-09-23T07:11:00.001+02:00

Cannot believe how quickly this week has flown by, nothing but long days at work every single day and no time for extra me-time or scrapping. Hooraah for Friday!

Autumn is definitely here to stay, most trees are blazing in wonderful colours and the mornings are getting rather nippy. Wonderful to reminisce about warmer days and happy moments, like weddings.

This week TCR is in his room and the colours are rich and muted; Rich Burgandy, Light White, English Mustard and Cool Grey.

It was the rich burgandy and cool grey that set my mojo moving this time.

Here's my friend L who lives in York (as in old York, UK) and her Scottish relative at a family wedding in Glasgow, UK last summer. I just loooove her dotted dress! and what a handsome man in his gorgeous kilt and the beautiful bag pipe!

The cream paper doesn't look much unless you see it in the right angle so that the subtle floral pattern shows. It's from Anna Griffin's Georgette collection.

The next layer is grey cardstock. Both the script and dotted papers are from MME Lost & Found 2, as is the white&grey striped punched border between the MME lace and the burgandy punched out border, which by the way is a paper from one of the spring 2011 Prima collections.

I have piped out liquid pearls on the burgandy dots.

In the cluster you will find rolled up music sheet from MME L&F 2, really old ribbon from BG courtesy of my scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, cut out rose buds from K&Co Julianna, a stamped clock face and 3 embellies from MME L&F 2.

Fussy cut blooms from K&CO Julianna. The rest of the flowers and the mustard crocheted doily are from Prima. Pearl swirl is MME L&F 2 and the black alphas are Prima. A TH book plate that I have dabbed in white acrylic paint.

A penny wedding is a wedding where the guests bring food with them. Well, this Scottish wedding was anything but a penny one!

I am so looking forward to my me-time this weekend, had a parcel from the US yesterday and cannot wait to get going on the scrumminess it contained!

To all of you out there - have a fantastic weekend and thank you so very much for your visit! Your comment makes me very very happy!

Toodeloo! cheerio! xoxoxox Eila

#76 Remember

2011-09-17T11:31:00.000+02:00

Hello weekend!

I was away for 3 days from the office Wed-Thur-Frid together with my fellow PAs/Executive Assistants. We were on a workshop in "7 Habits of Highly Efficient People" (Stephen Covey). Just imagine 11 women in the same room discussing and role playing around really difficult situations and topics, talk about energy! so much laughter and so much shared fun! With the one rule that what is said in the room, stays in the room, there was a lot of honest sharing I can tell.

Feels really great to be home again with my darling hubby and the kitties. The list of must-do's is as long as my arm, so I'll go straight to the TCR palette #76 and my layout.

Even though the colours are yet again so very pretty, I found it very challenging to find the right shades of all colours. Here's palette #76 for you; Prettiest Pink, Raincloud Blue, Avocado Green, and Openly Orange.

And here's my page.

All papers are again from Swedish Pion Design, but from their spring collection with the exception of the brown paper that I've used instead of cardstock. That one's from their Love collection.

The gentleman in the photo is the father of my girlfriend M, and the young lady is her daughter L. The pic was taken last summer when they were together on summer hols in Cornwall, UK. Grand dad lives in Norway, so this was a real family treat to them all.

Crocheted doily (that's my only contribution to the Raincloud Blue) and Prima blooms. I made the green flower with the pearl centre myself from one of the Pion papers. The flower trail at the bottom is fussy-cut from a Prima Pixie Glen paper.

More fussy-cutting from Pixie Glen and another hand-made green flower.

We got 3 birdcages in one of the kits at the Ingvild Bolme workshop. Now I only have one left - boohoo!

The chippie lamp post is from French online store Embelliscrap. They don't come in craft as most other chippies do, but in a shabby cream with faintly "chalked" edges in brownish. I just stippled some white acrylic paint on it and left it more or less as it was.

LOVE the Prima Alphas! and have them in almost every colour available. Just the perfect size and the sheet has so many of each Alpha, both upper and lower case.

Couldn't resist cutting out the single birdie from one of the Pixie Glen papers and placing it on the gate post so that it looks as if its friends are flying in to join him. The gate is once again from Embelliscrap. I first painted it in TA Glimmer Glam in Espresso Bean, zapped it with my heat gun and then spread out Viva Decor liquid pearl in bronze and copper with my finger for some shine. Looks really nice IRL I have to say.

No stamping or misting/masking as I wanted the papers to only subtly frame the photo, which I know is very very precious to both my girlfriend and her daughter.

Et voilà, that's all!

Have a super weekend! now off to the supermarket. Cheerio!

xoxoxox Eila

UOAS 1 September challenge in combo with CCG #208

2011-09-12T21:04:00.001+02:00

Both TCR and CCG have gorgeous colour palettes this week, TCR with lilacs as main and CCG with a soft, pretty palette of pastels and PEARLS as product prompt. Just look at the yummie inspirational photo! "Mulberry Tea, Porcelain Pearl, Sugared Lilac and Blue Fairy Dust".

The UOAS 1 September challenge closes in about 2 days. Here's Nadia's wonderful sketch:

This time the journalling criteria is "A Memorable Year". The title must be a year, and you must journal at least 2 lines on why this year is memorable for you.

Pastels, pearls and a memorable year, there can only be one specific year that covers it all: 2000. It was a year of the greatest possible sorrow, but also one that ended in great joy. My mother gave up her battle against cancer and only a few months later, I met Bengt whom I married before the year had come to its end.

It was truly a year when one door closed in my face, but another one opened and beckoned me in.

So, without further ado, here's my page:

The blue paper is K&Co Watercolor Bouquet. I've also fussy cut flowers from the K&Co papers. The alphas are Prima and the stamped sentiment is Cloud9. The resin key hole is from Melissa Frances.

The scrunched ribbon/lace is MME Lost&Found 2. The little birds are cut-out from a Prima Pixie Dust paper. The music sheet overlay is KaiserCraft. Have to admit I've forgotten where the chippie frame/flourish is from as I had removed the wrapping, but I definitely know it's from Australia!

Some more Prima, this time Romantique (circle and square pieces of paper) and the triple layered cut-out b&w frames are Prima Printery Line. Prima bling and some liquid pearls.

The lilac flower has more sugar to it than its colour, it's sprinkled in glitter too. The creamy/yellow one is KaiserCraft and what looks like fuchsia here, is actually a dark mulberry colour. The conditions were not the best for evening photographing, sorry about that.

That's it folks! Thank you ever so much for your visit and for any beautiful comment!

Have a great rest of the week! xoxoxox Eila

Celebrating 75 with the Sweet Serenity digikit and a page for Les Papiers de Pandore

2011-09-10T07:02:00.000+02:00

Hello dear friends!

Have you seen anything as beautiful as the digi kit that Lydell Quin and Emma Stafrace have designed to celebrate the 75h palette of The Color Room?! such incredibly talented ladies and what amazing layouts the DT have come up with using the digi kit!! This is a HUGE release!

You do not have to be a digital scrapbooker to enjoy a digital kit. You can print off the elements either on paper (the white backs of paper you know you will never use are a great option to cut down and print your elements onto as it is a heavier weight than just a piece of copier paper) or on transparency and then use them in the way you would use any physical product you would buy.

So we have a special printable giveaway for Members this week, and the option to purchase this fun kit that the DT used to create their works of Art for just $6.00......Remember you don't need to use this kit digitally if you are not a digital scrapper. You can place any element on an A4 or 8.5 x 11 sheet in your editing software, and print it out and cut it out as you would an element in your printed paper. You can print on Paper or printable transparency.

Proceeds from this kit will go towards the running of the site. We ask that you donate $6.00 to TCR by using the 'DONATE' button then email me and Lydell will send you the link to download the kit...........lydell@exemail.com.au

Here are the A4 sized sheets. The first is a .jpeg file the second is .png all saved at 300dpi for optimum printing, so save both or the relevant one depending whether you want to do a digi page or traditional/hybrid one by right clicking and saving...Can't wait to see what you guys create using this little giveaway :)

And for those who like me are totally lost when it comes to digi scrapping, here's this week's palette with Lightest Lilac, Luscious Lilac, Cornflower Blue and Deepest Brown. BEAUTIFUL!!

And here's my page created with old-fashioned paper and scissors :))

This is my friend L's mother IH and her daughter K on my friend's special birthday last year. They live in York (as in "old" York), UK. Granny is a bonny Scottish lass. I called my page "Together" (.. is the best place to be). This page is now framed and hangs in granny IH's house as I sent it to her for her recent birthday.

I printed out two copies of the same photo, silhouetted one of them and mounted over the other one. It gives the photo a subtle dimension without getting chunky.

The papers are a mix of two different collections from Swedish Pion Design. Lookie lookie - fussy cutting! :))

The flowers are from Prima and Petaloo. Some TA splatter in 3 different hues of blue and lilac. Stickles Star Dust on the cut-out butterflies. I cut white mini doilies from Leeann Pearce's Chip Chop Shop in half and placed them in a fan-shape above the photo, then added a PP Artisan Element and some pearls and a mini Prima resin flower. The alphas are Prima. Liquid pearls for the centres of the violets.

My GD assignment over at Les Papiers de Pandore is nearing its end, but I've still got some more pages to share. Here's the one that was posted on Wednesday, 7 September. I've called it "Little Friends". All the papers are from the summer collection.

As I have mentioned before, dear husband and I love taking drives into the countryside and having coffee and cake somewhere in a picturesque place. In the summer one really has to guard one's cakes and cookies as little friends very quickly come to say hello, i.e. little birds.

The yellow crocheted doily is from Leeann's Chip Chop Shop on Etsy. She has doilies in all sizes and almost all the colours of the rainbow, just delicious!

To continue on the outdoor feel of the page, I've used wooden buttons and very rough twine on the page as well as hand-stitched a golden brown frame. The photo is double matted in green paper and a roughly cut piece of frayed muslin, and then I hand-stitched in zig-zag around the pic.

For the title I used alpha stickers and a label from the summer collection and mounted them on a piece of corrugated cardboard that I cut in the same shape as the label. I initially planned to crochet a border à la Stacy Cohen and therefore had already punched the holes in the cardboard when I changed my mind. What to do? I simply cut off half of the holes and got a stamp border instead!

I painted a chippie border from Imaginarium Design in white acrylic paint, thicker dollops in places to get an uneven surface. Then I cut it horizontally in half to mimic a garden balustrade.

I loved making the felt blooms and cutting out the leaves/stems from the back of one of the papers.

The weather forecast promises lovely balmy weather this weekend, the sun is already showing its pale rays from a clear blue sky. All of Stockholm seemed to be out and enjoying the unexpected warm weather on Friday evening, even I sampled a Frozen Strawberry Margharita and hubbs and I had a wonderful leisurely stroll back home from the cocktail bar.

Wishing you all a really great weekend! Thanks for popping by and leaving a hello!

Take care! xoxoxox Eila

Ingvild Bolme fan club and TCR #74 Reaching for the Taj

2011-09-04T19:25:00.000+02:00

Touched by the magic and lived to tell ya all!

So we're back home after yesterday's workshop with Ingvild Bolme and boy what an awesome experience it was!

Some 50 ladies from all over Sweden and from Norway as well, gathered in eager anticipation of meeting Ingvild IRL. She had the same workshops both on Saturday and today. I took the one yesterday but as it is a 6-hour-drive home one way, we decided to stay over night.

It was absolutely fantastic meeting Bente (Fagerberg) for the first time ever. Big was the hug exchanged and high the mutual cheers! It was lovely to meet Bente's daughter Alex (Alexandra) as well, such a pretty young lady.

To our utter disappointment, Prima had not delivered the ergonomic tools designed by Ingvild, not yet released on the market. Nor had they shipped the new flower collections. However, we got to work with the distresser tool, crafter's knife and a couple of Ingvild's chalks that she had brought with her from Norway for us to borrow during the workshop. Heavenly to use I say and definite must-haves!!

Here's Mrs Shrek goofing around with them ;)))

We all had 2 bags with products to be used for the two layouts that we were to make, lots of Prima's of course. Incredibly fascinating to learn how Ingvild plans her pages and the variation of techniques she uses. This is a lady with graphic designing in her CV and it certainly shows!

Here's the "skeleton" of the first layout that we made. I've left out the actual photo that goes in under or on top of the cut-out frame to show you what would normally be hidden under the photo.

Ingvild has combined 4 different paper collections on this page. See the itty bitty birds sitting on the branch to the far bottom left? they are cut out from a Pixie Glen paper. The butterflies at the top left are from Pastische. The soft soft soft papers are from the Printery collection.

Soft & calm backgrounds and plenty of white space are something that Ingvild underlined several times. DO NOT cover your pages in flowers! is something else she warned about. Don't line up your elements in straight lines and don't overly distress your edges, are other words of wisdom from this goddess of shabby chic.

Lean (de Ruiter) if you're reading this; the next photo is especially for you! and yes, the flushed old woman with double chins is me .. DH took the pic and did neither Milo or myself any justice by LOWERING the camera instead of RAISING it when taking the pic grrrrr!

Dear me, the next one is not particularly flattering either ... we were not the only ones wanting to take a snapshot of themselves together with La Ingvild. Here's me from the left, Bente and Alexandra to the far right.

The name of this young lady rings a bell in many quarters; Camilla Ekman. Such a soft and gentle lady with distinct flair. She's on the DT of Glitz Design, Zva Creative, Swirlydoos Kit Club and Get Picky, as well as Swedish Country Scrap that hosted the workshop. Camilla is holding the second layout that we worked on but didn't quite have the time to finish.

Fantastic, colourful, creative, funny, awesomely talented and inspirational Mahlin Wiggur was also at the workshop. A true vitamin injection! Mahlin designs for Nikki Sivils, American Crafts, BoBunny, and a couple of Swedish sites. I'm even more flushed now, me thinks the windows needed getting opened up at this point in time.

The day just swooshed by and I wish it had been a two-day one, soooo much to soak in and soooo much to learn. You girls Down Under, you sure have something to look forward to in November!

Reversing time to Friday now and the release of the new palette #74 over at TCR. Just taste the names of the colours; Light Blue, Riverstone Brown, Clotted Cream and Deep Red.

I have a friend called S who lives in Los Angeles, USA. She used to work for a major American airline for a great many years and have travelled around the world to many exciting places. Earlier this year she and another friend of hers, C, whom I don't know, were invited by a mutual friend from the airline industry to his Bengali wedding in India. S and C of course had to visit Taj Mahal.

It was her red scarf and beautiful embroidered Indian coat/kaftan that decided the papers and layout for me.

The chippie lock and handle are from French online store Embelliscrap. I embossed them in gold and then chalked everything in Chestnut Roan. The rose is cut off from a Prima bouquet and the crystals are from a local craft store. What looks like a die cut is cut-out from an MME Lost & Found 2 paper.

The b&w floral paper is also from MME L&F 2. The brownish backing paper is from BoBunny Etcetera. The red sparkly frame is cut out from another MME L&F 2 paper as are the b&w striped and the flourished pieces with parts of the title on (the Taj). The ornate pale blue chippie square is also from Embelliscrap, I dabbed it in Adirondack Sky and then painted it over in Shimmerz December Sky before embossing it in Diamond Glitter. The metall embellishment and amber rhinestone are both BoBunny Etcetera as are the script chippie alphas. The tiny red ones are Kaiser Craft.

White oval swirly frame overlay is from Hambly and the strip of red circles with white liquid pearls is from an old MME paper.

Here you can see the photo itself a bit closer up.

Really wanted to get this up before it was bed time, it is another day in the office tomorrow! Love to read your comments and love having your for a visit, thank you very much and please do come again if you have the time!

Take care! cheers! xoxoxo Eila

TCR #73 Cover Girl and Taking a Dog Nap for Les Papiers de Pandore

2011-08-30T20:50:00.000+02:00

Hello dear friends near and far!

I am sorry for being late uploading my page for the TCR palette #73, things sort of unexpectedly got in the way the passed weekend ... again. As you can see, there are two shades of orange in the palette - chaaallenging says Mrs Sandberg! I think the inspirational photo is kind of cool though, reminds me of the 1960's/70's and as somebody on the DT said; it looks like something Austin Powers would dig!

The lady in the photo is my ex-MIL. Boy was I happy to find the Crate Lemon Grass papers at the bottom of my stash. Groovy baby! as Austin puts it :))

I think Crate makes the most fabulous papers ever, but as they don't exactly lend themselves to my beloved fussy cutting, my page is very clean.

My ex-FIL was Marketing & Sales Director at a well-known Swedish company in the food sector and he used his wife in some of their campaigns. Don't you just love the feel to the photo!

It is also time to share a page that I made for Les Papiers de Pandore. I've called it "Taking a Dog Nap".

So here's one of my friend K's dogs, this is Doris. The other one, is called Buster. He's a terrier. My friend lives on the Swedish countryside with lots of woods and wildlife just around the corner, so she takes long walks with Doris and Buster. Anyone can get a bit tired after having been out in the fresh air and exercized a little bit too much .... ha ha that never happens to me though as I am very lazy! but poor Doris got so tired she had to take a little nap in the sofa. Doesn't she just look cool with her funny little face, resting so adorably on her blanket, which by coincidence has the colours of the new papers.

And what do you spy - fussy cutting! the blooms are cut out from the K & Co Tim Coffey Cottage Garden collection. The chippie leaves from Imaginarium Design peeking out under the Prima leaf were chalked in Burnt Sienna + Dark Moss + Olive + Amber Clay + Berryliscious and Gold.

The alphas are from French online store Emélliscrap and are in cork, which gives a very nice and rough country feel to them IRL. They also go so well with the leather sofa in the photo. The velvet ruffled ribbon that runs across the page is from Prima, I have misted it in Tattered Angels Sand and Suede + chalked randomly in Chestnut Roan.

I also stamped with ink in yellow ochra on the centre piece of brown paper to add interest but somehow it comes across like .. well, almost white?!

Some stacked scalloped circles and a big pearl plonked down in the middle.

And there you have them both!

I am so so looking forward to this upcoming Saturday which is a milestone in my scrappy life. Ingvild Bolme is coming to Sweden for a workshop and I'm going there! After having exchanged a great many emails over the passed year, I will meet my sweet scrappy friend Bente Fagerberg IRL! I have also caught in the Swedish scrappy chat rooms that it will be a crowd of well-known Swedish names meeting up for the workshop, and I'm thrilled to bits to meet them all.

Yes, the camera has fresh batteries and a new memory chip! we sure are going to click away to commemorate this occasion!

Have a fantastic rest of the week folks! thanks for having a peek and any lovely comment you leave!

xoxoxox Eila

The sequel to TCR #72

2011-08-24T06:22:00.000+02:00

Autumn really has made its entrance in Stockholm, when I pulled up the blinds this morning I was met with a milky white wall outside the window. Fog!! That really is too early. An old Swedish saying is when the rowan tree has an abundance of berries, the winter will be long and hard. In that case, we are in for another perma frost. Yuk!

Last Friday I promised to share the sequel to my #72 Mamma and without further do, here it is. As the page is for the book I'm making for her, the title is in Swedish; "Svunnen tid". I've used the title before, but it pretty much captures what it's all about; Bygone Days.

As you can see, the photo of my MIL was taken at the same studio shoot as the previous one.

The backing paper is from Swedish Pion Design. I've used the same TA Glimmer Mist in Sand and Suede as on my other page to keep both backgrounds together. I've also masked/misted a big clock face in TA Patina.

The tag and the butterfly are cut out from a Pion Design paper. The tag and the strip of muslin are dyed in very strong coffee. Two strips of lace, one left natural and the other one dyed in TA Patina. The same ink in Champagne poured out in a rivulet. Here you can also see the script on the backing paper a bit closer.

The golden/teal fabric brad is from Danish Tilda. The tape measure is also cut out from a paper from Pion Design. I pulled out the centres of two gardenias and replaced the stamens with new fabric flowers centres from Australian online store Maxine's Mélange. That's the "fuzzy" brown&white.

In the same cluster is a Prima bloom and a key from my stash, cannot for the world remember which brand it is. I made the little metal embellishment by cutting out a section with the birds from a Pion Design paper and glueing it onto the trinket and adding liquid pearls around the border. Some mother of pearl buttons from Danish Tilda finishes the cluster together with a coffee-dyed tag tied with a dito strip of muslin.

I bought the zink wreath at local craft store Panduro quite a while ago. Here I have dabbed acrylic paint in Sky, Patina and Brown on it to give it an additional weathered look.

On the left a torn piece of Gessoed cardboard and another strip of coffee dyed muslin tied around the zink wreath.

And that's it! now I had really better get going with my morning preparations, time to leave for work soon! Have a great rest of the week and thanks so very very much for having a peek!

Toodeli pip! xoxoxox Eila

TCR #72 Mamma and two cards for Les Papiers de Pandore

2011-08-19T06:27:00.000+02:00

Hello dear friends near and far, once again it's Friday which means release time over at TCR and CCG. The 15 August challenge was also released some days ago at UOAS, and as always the DT have created stunning pages.

Here is the palette with Deep Dusty Pink, Light Minty Teal, Pale Lilac Grey, Pastel Olive Green.

These colours were initially really challenging for me. However, Julie Wink's amazing class "Layered Layouts" at Miss Art's Papercrafting School set my mojo moving in the right direction and once I had started, the page more or less scrapped itself. I actually also made a sequel to my page while I had the steam up, I'll soon show you this second TCR page ;))

Those of you who haven't discovered Miss Art's yet, boy have you missed something! Headmistress is wonderful Alyssa McGrew and the list of teachers is like that of of Oscar nominees - truly star spangled! You will be taken directly to the school if you click HERE

So after a rather longwinded intro, this is my take on TCR palette #72:

The lady in the photo is my MIL, it was taken in the mid 1950's.

The backing paper is by Danish Tilda. I started by washing it in a thin coat of Gesso and misting it in TA Golden Walnut and Suede. I also flicked on some drops of the same mists. Then some script stamping on the left.

The butterflies travelling over the page are cut out from a paper by Swedish Pion Design.

The chippie frame is from French online store Embélliscrap, I chalked it first in Chestnut Roan, then in Glacier Ice. Under it is a dotted paper from Tilda that I cut in the same shape as the frame.

The mauvish flowers are snipped off from a Prima carnation vine, the brown rose, lace and pearls are from my stash. IRL the lace and pearls almost hover in mid-air, took quite a bit of work with my glue gun to get the effect.

Some torn muslin tucked in under the layers and some liquid ink in champagne poured in rivulets. I think the pebbles with the bird and rose are Basic Grey Curio.

Another close up of the layers. Some more cut-outs from Pion Design and something little from the K&Co Flora & Fauna ephemera pack.

I had a couple of birthday cards up on the blog of Les Papiers de Pandore on Wednesday 17th, sorry for the delay in posting it here. Julie uses a different blog motor than Blogspot and it seems that the twine are not compatible why photos on her blog simply don't show on mine. Really annoying.

First a typcial Eila card with lace and a flower.

The white lacey layer under the flower is German scrap from Australian online store Maxine's Melange. It comes in a long strip but I cut out sections and layered them under and around the Prima silk bloom.

Have to admit I've totally forgotten if the chippie flourish is from Maxine's or Imaginarium Designs, that's really bad of me.

And the other card:

The chippie cup and pot are from KaiserCraft. I misted some muslin in TA Sunflower and tucked in under the pot. Then some torn out threads from the muslin that I misted in TA Sand and Suede and placed above the cup to mimic steam. The resin apple pin is from Leean Pearce's Chip Chop Shop.

Tack så mycket för besöket! as we say in my lingo when we thank people for their much appreciated visit. So lovely to have had you for a peek, thank you warmly and hope to see you again!

Wish you all a wonderful weekend! xoxoxo Eila

Made the Once Upon A Sketch 1 August challenge by the skin of my teeth

2011-08-14T13:31:00.002+02:00

Have been thinking about playing at OUAS ever since they launched their challenge on 1 August. Thinking doesn't get you far though, so it took me only hours before they closed their site for me to actually get down to making a layout.

It is admittedly rather late to upload the sketch in the 50th minute of the twelfth hour, but it is only fair to give you a chance to see it and the journalling criteria.

Journalling Criteria: Finish this line "A PERFECT DAY IS....." . Your journalling has to be at least 2 lines long, and with the theme of a whatever a perfect day for you is or a perfect day that you have had already e.g. a birthday, a holiday, a childhood memory, a wedding day, graduation day etc. Your journalling can be ANY type : handwritten, typed, etc...

You MUST combine our journalling criteria with this sketch...

With barely hours to go, here is what I came up with;

I wrote the journalling as if it were my MIL who said it; "A perfect day is when my son comes to see me, his watch doesn't have any hands". Now don't we all feel guilty when we visit our old parents or relatives, and time always seems to be the crucial factor for when we have to leave. For them, the visit is always too short.

The photo was taken last summer (2010) and is of my husband and his mother now aged 86. My DH is the only child of rather elderly parents and my MIL is widowed since a few years back. Despite having friends living very close to her and a very active senior citizen life, she still misses her own husband of course and life tends to be very slow. We live quite a distance away from where she lives, which makes it difficult for us to visit her as often as we would like.

The backing paper is Fancy Pants "Lilac House". I've misted it in TA Glimmermist Suede and Walnut Gold.

Here I have also cut out and punched out strips from some Authentique papers. I am trying to diminish my stash of Prima flowers so that I can buy some more from the new line to be released any day now. The mini flourish is from French online store Embélliscrap and painted in Shimmerz Choc-o-lot brown before Stickled in Faded Jeans.

The clock is also bought from the French online store Embélliscrap and has no hands as you can see. That's to symbolize the wish my MIL has, that time would cease to be important. It is also painted in the same Shimmerz brown before chalked in Blush Rose and Glacier Ice and then brushed in Stickles Faded Jeans here and there. Liquid pearls in white around the clock face.

Here you can see the strips of paper and the green WP lace better. The script and teal roses are also Prima.

The green foam thickers are American Crafts and all the other ones are also from Authentique.

Just a quick post this Sunday afternoon. The rains have subsided in Stockholm and a pale sun can be seen between the clouds. DH has just gone out to our bakery around the block for some scrummy buttery cinnamon rolls, almost time for a coffee break!

Thanks for popping in and having a peek! Enjoy the rest of your weekend and have a great start to the week.

xoxoxox Eila

TCR #71A Beach Hunk and #71B Little Monkey

2011-08-12T19:40:00.000+02:00

Another week has flashed by and it's Friday again, which means release time both over at TCR and CCG.

Hottest Pink, Pale Baby Blue, Lightest Grey and Deep Baby Blue - colours that make my mouth water even if the Hottest Pink made me think more than twice! Here's the palette:

Beach hunks come in many different shapes and forms, often we think of them as really tanned and tall. Well, they say a picture says more than a thousand words ...

The papers are K&Co Around The World. I cut out the beach cabana and some other smaller details and mounted them on sticky pads for some height.

To get the clouds I just smacked out dollops of the "snow paint" I've mentioned several times before with my fingers, looks like Gesso mixed with very fine grained sand. Then I misted lightly with TA Glimmer Chalk in Cornflower before dabbing some Adirondack acrylic paint in Sky Blue. The "sand" is also dabbed in acrylic paint.

The "waves" I punched out with a circle punch, dollopped on some Gesso for white froth, chalked in silver, and dabbed with SkyBlue acrylic paint before adding droplets of TA Glimmermist in Dragonfly.

I've had a pack of WP ribbon bloomers for quite some time, never knew what to do with them. Now I cut them horizontally in half and then again in smaller pieces that I layered on the waves, and on the hibiscus bloom in the top lefthand corner.

Here you have a closer view of the amazing Mediterranean!

Often when I love certain colours in a combo, I make a second page highlighting another main colour. My second page #71B Little Monkey has the paler blue as main.

It is very much inspired by the beautiful work of Trudi Harrison and the Blae & Ivy papers by Kaisercraft. Trudi has very sweetly given me her blessing to share my page with you. All credit to Trudi!

Some of you might recognize this giggly little girl, Miss M, from several of my previous layouts. She's the daughter of my DH's cousin.

The papers lend themselves to fabulous fussy cutting, here I've layered quite a bit. I made the flowers myself.

A pale grey chiffon bow peeking out above and white liquid pearls that I have placed in many places on the page.

Well, that's about it! thank you warmly for your visit and for any comment you might want to leave!

Have a fantastic weekend!

xoxoxox Eila

TCR #70 My iToy and another page for Les Papiers de Pandore

2011-08-10T17:58:00.000+02:00

Gosh! this Wednesday is far from fair and summery, the rain just chucks it down and my new pink suede ballerinas look like .... my own fault for not checking the wather forecast this morning.

I am back at work again, feels so nice to meet friends and co-workers after my long a glorious summer hols. Lots of catching up to do, which means lots of coffee has to be drunk and perhaps something sweet gets dunked as well ;))

Will soon have caught up with my visits and commenting.

A new beautiful girly palette, #70, was released over at TCR last Friday. The colours are really so yummie again, thanks Lydell! We are looking at Deep Rose Pink, Celery Green, Bright White and Pine Floorboard. I think the celery and the pine were really tricky!

I've already moaned and groaned enough about the ruined LO in my previous post, it was meant for this palette. I made a substitute with papers from Danish Tilda. Here it is:

This is of course DH with his precious toy. The photos were taken a few weeks ago in the gardens of the museum where we saw the fabulous exhibition with couture dresses. As soon as we stopped for a while, he immediately took out his iPhone and started checking on this and that *sigh*

A cluster of Prima blooms mixed with stuff from my stash. The silver Sultan flower centre and the two crystals really sparkle in the sun. The chippie alpha "B" is the first letter of my hubby's name; Bengt.

Have a stamp with something that looks like random mirrored figures and letters, just like something cut out from a string of programming commands. Used that around the page to mimic iPhone-ish and as my DH is an IT-nerd by profession.

I love the Tilda papers, such pretty double-sided ones in all of their collections!

I stitched on a muslin heart on top of one of the paper ones.

Now to something more autumnal as I've been playing with the autumn collection over at Les Papiers de Pandore (LPdP). HERE'S the link to Julie's post from earlier this morning.

My dear friend K lives on the Swedish country side in a little red-painted house with white gables, a very typical old fashioned Swedish house. It is surrounded by vast fields and woods where wild animal can be seen. Miss K very recently tragically lost her husband and as they didn't have any children either, their two dogs Doris and Buster are great company for my friend. Those of you who a regulars at TCR, have seen Buster in my LO #55A called It's a Dog's Life. There he sits on the porch doing what dogs do.

In this layout I have used photos of Doris (to the left) and Buster (to the right) when they are out on a walk-about with their mummy, my friend K. I think they are just so cute there side by side on the little bridge, almost as if they are saying "come on, let's go home".

My friend has also photographed the wonderful butterfly on the bloom that I've used as well.

On this layout I have used 4 layers that I have stitched together. The bottom one is from the new line, then a raspberry pink Bazzill Swiss dot cardstock topped by anoter cardstock in pink before the wonderful wood grained paper also from the new line. The leaf punch is from Martha Stewart and the vinyl alphas are American Craft.

I made the accordion bloom from one of the new papers and topped it with a Prima bloom. The orange brads next to "home" are My Mind's Eye Stella & Rose. The ribbons are a gift from my colourful scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida. Thanks again for your generosity Mrs K!

The leaves/birdhouse I cut out from one of the new papers, the brown tag under it is also from the new line. I used Tim Holz distress ink in Walnut Stain to stamp "en pleine nature" (roughly translates to outdoors/in the wilderness/in nature) on canvas and added a tiny pink brad from Basic Grey. The bird sitting on top of the bird house is from K&Company.

I also cut-out the words "promenons-nous" (roughly translated it means let's go for a stroll"),and the producer tag "Les Papiers de Pandore" from one of the papers. Mounted the strips on coloured paper and used as extra sentiments.

Et voilà! there's a whiff of France for you! Regretfully Julie's papers are currently only sold by French online stores, but if you bombard her with requests for re-sellers in the English speaking world, who knows what might happen! You can contact Julie over at TCR, she can be found under the member section under her name Julie.

Of course CCG released a gorgeous gorgeous palette last Friday as well, just my colours so I am really so sorry I don't have time to play this week either. Totally stunning pages created by the DT! go have a peek if you haven't already!

Also UOAS recently announced the DT's unanimous winner of the 15 July challenge: Gayle Price whose entry was a total stunner. Just look at her fabulous page and be prepared for a truly amazing page:

And so I've come to the end of this post. Thank you sweet ladies for taking a peek and for perhaps leaving a comment! I always always treasure each word you write, thank you once more.

xoxoxox Eila

Les Papiers de Pandore's new autumn collection "Promenons Nous"

2011-08-03T13:36:00.000+02:00

Bonjour tout le monde! or hello everybody!

On 1 August the new autumn collection "Promenons Nous" or "Let's Take a Stroll" was released over at Les Papier de Pandore (LPdP). Here are the wonderful papers and the stamps for you to drool over:

Here's the link that takes you directly to LPdP's website where you can see examples of Julie's own work and my page introduced today: click HERE

LPdP also has a web magazine, or as they call it; webzine, published on the first day of each months. It's really easy to subscribe to, you just click on the link HERE, which will take you directly to the Webzine. On the right look for "Recevoir nouveautés et webzine" and add your email address in the larger box. Remember to tick both smaller boxes before pressing the OK. Mind you it is French, but the photos speak to any nationality! The followers are called "Pandorettes" - isn't that just so cute!

You can of course also click there directly from the header of the main website if you are a subscriber.

The papers are only sold through French stores, but if you're interested in buying them, you will find a list of suppliers on the main website, under the heading "Revendeurs" HERE

Now to close-ups of my page for LPdP which I called "Autumn Leaves".

This is Miss T whom you've seen in several pages before, she's the daughter of my DH's cousin. The photo was taken on a beautifully sunny and crisp day in the autumn of 2010 in Skåne (or Skania in English) which is in the south of Sweden where they live. A perfect day to go exploring the forest and tree climbing together with her best friend and their respective families. You can see how the leaves have turned yellow and orange. What a coincidence that her knitted mittens are a perfect match for the papers!

The brown splatter is Nescafé (I lifted the idea straight away from TCR DT Naomi Capps) and I think it looks even better than ink or splotches of mist. At least it smells very good :))

All flowers and leaves are Prima. I like to cut off snippets from branches and vines to make them last longer. The doily from KaiserCraft is cut in half and placed on either side of the photo.

I named my page after the little tag with "les feuilles d'automne" - directly translated it means just that; "autumn leaves".

The acorns and the oak leaf are from my stash, I think they are from K & Company. The floral ribbon is a gift from my colourful scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida, thanks a bunch Bekah!

The alphas are cut out from the new papers and mounted on tiny squares of sticky pad.

A chippie flourish peeking out from the cluster. I chalked it brown and then used Stickles in different autumnal colours.

The large brown alphas were originally craft coloured and bought from Maxine's Melange. My alltime favourite chalk is Cat's Eye Chestnut Roan, here I have used Tim Holz Crackle Paint in clear Rock Candy for a finishing touch. Just love how beautiful the crackle turns out each time!

My summer hols are coming to its end and work starts on Monday but before I call high summer the quits, here are two invites for summer dinner that I would like to share with you. All materials used are from Danish designer Tilda.

It was the adorable asparagus that had me!

and the other:

I think the veggies are just the cutest!

Absolutely wonderful to have had you for a peek and thank you so so much for any comment you may want to leave! My next post will be on Friday when the new TCR palette is released. Take care!

xoxoxox Eila

TCR #69 Pastoral Beauty and a couple of cards

2011-07-31T16:40:00.004+02:00

Coming to the end of my summer hols and this Sunday. As usual weekends are far too short don't you think?

Had a temporary dip to my good spirits at the end of last week when I had left a just finished layout on my work table for a short while and heard a frightful crash boom bang ... had a bad feeling in my tummy that I wouldn't like what I was going to see and sure almost started bawling my eyes out when I saw the disaster. My own fault for having left a mug of half-drunk coffee next to my page. Curiousity didn't kill our cat Elsa for having unleashed all that liquid, felt like everything was practically soaked in the coffee ...

Ripped and cut away the little bit that could be saved and then put it aside waiting for my mojo to come back from its hike. Best remedy in such circumstances, is to create something just for for your own pleasure, so that's what I did. Had found several different packs of unopened paper at the bottom of my piles when purging for the move to my itty nook. That's the plight of the hoarder, forgotten treasures ...

Here's what I made with K&Co Flora&Fauna:

So happy the sun was out of the clouds when I photographed it. The sparkly silver print is just lovely IRL.

Am trying to use up as much as possible of my stash to make space for the new CHA releases so here is a little something from the K&Co ephemera pack and a Melissa Frances mini envelope. A chippie corner from Imaginarium Designs.

A Prima silk bloom and pearl swirl, and really thick and luscious brown silk ribbon from my stash.

Now I was feeling a lot happier and thought I'd make another card:

The dotted pale blue and lime green paper is Prima Sparkling Spring.

The Australian online Maxine's Mélange store has the most gorgeous German Scrap, here I've used Victorian Lace.

The yellow bloom and the lime cabochon rose are from Prima. The tiny yellow paper roses are from my stash. The white Anette silk bloom is from Prima but I pulled out the stamens and replaced them with a flower centre from Maxine's Mélange. The teal fabric circle is from Webster's Pages, as are the creamy sticker alphas. A couple of grey pins from my colourful scrappy friend Rebekah in Florida. Thanks Mrs K!

TCR released a new palette #69 on Friday. We are looking at Stucco, Rusted Orange, Pool Blue and Bright White. Hmmmm .... orange but hey presto, one of the unopened paper packs I found was KaiserCraft's Devonshire. Perfetto! Just made for fussy cutting!

And here is the page I made:

The chippie gates are from Dusty Attic and the little key hole is from Melissa Frances. I painted, misted and chalked to my heart's content on the gates and then touched up everything with a bit of Stickles in Gold to remind a bit of scuffed splendour of old.

England has a very special place in my heart. Some years ago hubbs and I toured the Cotswolds which is about an hour's drive to the west of Heathrow Airport in London. Just to give you a hunch of where on the map it is.

We stayed at an adorable inn/hotel in Stratford Upon Avon and made day-trips from there. This is what the inn looked like.

I thought these grazing woolly little friends looked so picturesque that I wanted to take a close-up of them. Oh no, not another tourist! they must have thought as the whole heard of them turned around and showed me their butts as soon as I stepped any closer. Cheeky little chaps! Well, I still think the scenery is really so peaceful and pastoral.

And while on peaceful and pastoral, here's a close up of the little bird and its nest. I tore out strands from really rough Hessian and used as grass/nest. The bird is from K&Co Flora&Fauna and the flowers are Prima.

So happy you could come for a visit, thank you very very much! I will be back on Wednesday with some photos of my next layout over at Les Papiers de Pandore.

Now hubbs and I are off to see that last Harry Potter film! xoxoxox Eila

GDT at French Les Papiers de Pandore and CCG 201 in a combo with UOAS

2011-07-27T11:35:00.000+02:00

Bonjour à toutes!

I have some very exciting news from France to share with you this Wednesday!

A short while ago I was asked by the lovely and super talented Julie Blanc, owner of Les Papiers de Pandore, or LPdP in short, if I would be interested in guest designing for them.

Those of you who visit The Color Room (TCR) know that DT Julie's signature style is very strikingly elegant with a unique flair. All collections from LPdP bear the same trademarks as Julie's work. Not only are they very beautiful, but they are also produced from recycled paper and printed in Provence, France. Visitors to Bente Fagerberg's blog Paper and Glue Heaven will have seen what gems the papers are and what gorgeous pages Bente has created with them.

My reply to Julie's question? of course I said YES!!

HERE is the link to LPdP's website with the announcement of my GDT assignment and below are some close-ups of the first LO that I've created mainly with their current collection "Garden Party".

If you've visited my blog before, you know that DH and I live in the town centre and take every opportunity possible to drive out on little excursions on the country side. Visiting manor houses, drinking coffee, having lunch and just enjoying beautiful sceneries. I have always thought that cows grazing are so peaceful, and watching them do what cows do in nature, gives me a real feeling of harmony.

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago at a large country estate about 2 hours drive south from Stockholm. The estate is situated on a very luscious island in the same lake Mälaren that I wrote about in my post titled "Guresome Murder ...." The title for the LO came by itself - the cows are enjoying their garden party!

I made the fuchsia pink flowers from one of the papers in the collection. Misted what was to be the inside of the punched-out petals in TA Vintage Pink and plopped a large pearl into all of them.

To nobody's surprise, I'm all hooked on chippies now. This fence is from Australian online store Maxine's Melange. I painted it first in TH crackle paint in Picket Fence. Then touched it up with chalk in Chestnut Roan before putting some TH crackle paint in Rock Candy as finishing layer. The little birdie is cut out from an old WP paper.

Some more peones made from the fuchsia papers and a teeeny sneak from the new collection to be relased on 3 August.

TCR DT Naomi Capps makes the most brilliant brown splatter with NESCAFÉ! smells good too! Here's a close-up of the banner; punched out green Martha Stewart doily topped by an orange scallopped circle one and then alphas from the collection.

Love those cows so I had to give you a close-up of them as well.

Next Wednesday, 3 August, sees the launch of LPdP's new autumn collection, which is every bit as fantastic as all the previous ones. If you would like to visit me then, I will have some new photos to share with you of a layout that I made with the fantabulous papers.

And now to CCG palette 201 - isn't it just fantastic to have reached over 200 combos!! amazing is the word! and here's the yummie scrummie palette itself:

For this challenge, we are asked to include polka dots, metal, leaves, 3 circles, and fabric. Well, I'm a colour and paper girl and don't get much inspired by this kind of prompts, it's stressing me out instead of firing up my mojo.

Over at Once Upon A Sketch (UOAS) the 15 July challenge has accumulated almost 60 contributions at the time I'm writing this. Absolutely amazing layouts and the work of the DT always have the highest drool factor.

Here's the sketch and the journalling criteria : your journalling has to be a quote (handwritten, printed, rub on etc. ). As an option you can include journalling in the lines on sketch but this is not necessary.

Read more about the challenge and check out the work submitted HERE

Even if the CCG's designer challenge with metals etc doesn't appeal to me, I still think the colours are divine. The teal and the pink made me think of the new Scrap Cake papers designed by Karola Witczak, and as they were waiting for me on my desk to be scrapped, I decided to try them out even if the pink is off by several notches, I've at least got the dots!

I know that the Scrap Cake papers sold out in 24 hours in the Australian online store Anne's Crafting Cupboard, but you see, I bought mine online in Poland! the lovely lovely shopowner Anna even updated her store and made it possible for Swedes to order directly from it! Eventhough everything reads in Polish, I managed to press the right buttons and after a short email conversation with Anna, I settled my order through PayPal - easy peasy as that!

HERE IS A LINK DIRECTLY TO THE PAGE WITH THE PAPERS FROM SCRAP CAKE

Enough talk, here's my layout that I have called "Love and Cherish". I know, I know, it's a cheesy title but hey, it's rather tricky to come up with brill titles.

My quote is a very short one; "A kiss is a rosy dot over the "i" of loving" by Cyrano de Bergerac and the journalling says; "When I met you, my heart was broken and my soul in ashes. Your love has made my heart whole again, and swept clean my soul of cobwebs". I was a sad middle-aged divorcee when I met Bengt, and also he had had his fair share of sorrow. Together we have found happiness again in our lives.

The photos of my DH were taken last week in the museum gardens of the place where we saw the fantastic exhibition of haute couture dresses.

It being the ice cream month over at CCG, I decided to go for some icicle feel to my title chippies. I first chalked them in Chestnut Roan, then coated them thickly in Shimmerz Blingz in Choc-o-lot and finally doused everything in Glaze. May I say it looks rather yummylicious, just like dark Belgian chocolate!

The Scrap Cake collection has tags as well, gorgeous gorgeous tags so totally desirable. The brown WP sparkler is placed on a letter "o" from an old BG chippie collection and then again on top of a round, old adhesion sticker from my stash. White liquid pearls.

After a long post and many photos, it's time to say merci kind visitor, hope you have enjoyed browsing just a little bit. I so love reading every single comment that you leave, they really mean the world to me. Thank you!!

Please do come again if you have the time! xoxoxox Eila